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73rd annual meeting submissions deadline: september 5, 2007
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archaeological record
S O C I E T Y
F O R
MAY 2007 • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 3
A M E R I C A N
A R C H A E O L O G Y
Give the SAA a Gift on its 75th!
The SAA’s Endowments:
Making a Difference Today
The SAA endowments are not just about the distant
future. Earnings from the three funds are being put
to work right now, providing new opportunities for
students and improving the SAA’s overall effectiveness.
For example, in 2006, the SAA Board approved use
of some of the general endowment fund earnings to
support interns such as Kristin Baker of Howard
University, who served in the SAA’s Washington,
D.C. office. Kristin interned with David Lindsay in
the Government Affairs program. She first became
interested in archaeology after attending a field
school during the summer of her Junior year. In
Austin, she was lead author on a poster, and volunteered in the SAA meeting office.
Kristin’s internship began with background discussion and reading about federal laws and the various
federal agencies. After two weeks of preparation she
began work in earnest. And she didn’t get stuck with
filing and photocopying. She accompanied David to
committee meetings on the Hill. At other times when
David had a conflict, she attended meetings, took
notes, and reported back to David. Kristin commented, “It’s difficult to find an internship in Washington,
D.C. that provides monetary support, and in this
internship I not only got paid, I got to do exciting and
interesting things.”
Kristin’s internship illustrates how the SAA endowments are already making a difference. As the
endowments grow through this campaign, the opportunities to benefit more students and all of our membership will also grow. Please help us achieve these
goals.
Kristin Baker of Howard University served an internship
in the SAA’s Washington, D.C. office. The internship was
funded from the SAA General Endowment’s earnings.
Kristin is shown here assisting at the Annual Meeting in
Austin, Texas.
The SAA Endowment Campaign
In 2005, the SAA Board approved a five-year
campaign to add $500,000 to our endowments.
Give to one of these endowments:
Public Education
Native American Scholarships
SAA General Endowment
Or divide your gift among all three.
Your generosity will make a difference for
the SAA and for American archaeology right now,
as well as in the future!
To the generous people who have
already stepped up to
“Give the SAA a Gift on its 75th,”
thank you!
How to Give?
Make your donation on-line at www.saa.org, or use
the form on the back inside cover. If you have any
questions, please contact Tobi Brimsek at 202-7898200.
the
SAAarchaeological record
The Magazine of the Society for American Archaeology
Volume 7, No. 3
May 2007
Editor’s Corner
2
John Kantner
Letters to the Editor
3
From the President
5
Dean Snow
Learning from Las Vegas:
Archaeology in the Experience Economy
6
Cornelius Holtorf
British National Press Coverage of the
1998 Sterkfontein Hominin Fossil Discovery
11
Karol Kulik
Archaeology and the “Educated Public”:
A Perspective from the University
14
David Pokotylo
When Fancy Gets the Upper Hand of Fact: Historical
Archaeology and Popular Culture in the American West
19
Kelly J. Dixon
Student Affairs Committee:
So You’re In…Now What? Steps to Take After Being
Admitted to a Graduate Program
26
Elizabeth Bollwerk
Update on Activities of the Advisory Council on
Historic Preservation’s Archaeology Task Force
29
Daniel G. Roberts
The Impact of Mechanical Vegetation
Treatments on Archaeological Sites
32
Daniel Odess and Aaron Robertson
The Council of Affiliated Societies:
Past, Present, and Future
35
Hester A. Davis and Marcel Kornfeld
Wetherill Stew
38
David A. Phillips, Jr.
Insights: Bridging the Great Divide:
How Academic Archaeology Can Serve the Cultural
Resource Management Industry
39
Timothy L. McAndrews
In Memoriam: Alfred Edward Dittert, Jr.
43
Eric Dittert and Judy Brunson-Hadley
In Memoriam: Marjorie Ferguson Lambert
44
Shelby J. Tisdale
Report from the SAA Board of Directors
45
SAA Annual Business Meeting
47
2006 Award Recipients
52
news and notes
58
positions open
59
calendar
60
special section:
the popular appeal of archaeology
Archaeological survey at Natural Bridges, a collapsed lava
tube caves complex in southeastern Idaho. Recesses of the
cave yielded historic signatures
as well as shield pictographs.
Photo: Carolynne Merrell.
the
SAAarchaeological record
The Magazine of the Society for
American Archaeology
Volume 7, No. 3
May 2007
EDITOR’S CORNER
The SAA Archaeological Record
(ISSN 1532-7299) is published five
times a year and is edited by John Kantner.
Deadlines for submissions are: December
1 (January), February 1 (March), April 1
(May), August 1 (September), and October
1 (November); send to John Kantner, The
SAA Archaeological Record, John Kantner,
VP for Academic & Institutional Advancement, School of American Research, PO
Box 2188, Santa Fe, NM 87504-2188. For
information, call (505) 954-7238, fax (505)
954-7214, or email [email protected].
Manuscript submission via email or by
disk is encouraged. Advertising and
placement ads should be sent to SAA
headquarters, 900 Second St., NE #12,
Washington, DC 20002, (202) 789-8200.
Associate editors include:
Gabriela Uruñuela [Exchanges, Mexico
& Central America]
email: [email protected]
Jose Luis Lanata [Exchanges, Southern
Cone]
email: [email protected]
Anne Vawser [Government]
email: [email protected]
Cory Breternitz [Insights]
email: [email protected]
Mark Aldenderfer [Interface]
email: [email protected]
John Hoopes [Networks]
email: [email protected]
Teresa Pinter [Public Education]
email: [email protected]
Kurt Dongoske [Working Together]
email: [email protected]
John Kantner
John Kantner is Vice President for Academic & Institutional Advancement
at the School for Advanced Research.
Thanks!
Over six years ago, I became the editor of the then brand-new The SAA Archaeological
Record, which had been created under the guidance of former editor Mark Aldenderfer.
Since, as a graduate student, I assisted Mark with the then-named SAA Bulletin, I have
spent well over a decade working on the Society’s primary publication on the practice of
archaeology, one of the only such publications in our discipline. Although not always
an easy job, the editorship has been an invaluable experience, one through which I
have learned much I would not have otherwise learned, and met many colleagues
whom I otherwise might never have had the pleasure of knowing.
When I assumed responsibility of the The SAA Archaeological Record, my goal was to
make it more of a trade magazine and less of a society newsletter, recognizing both the
need for the former and the emerging role of the Internet for replacing many of the latter’s functions. My intention was not to purge the publication of all material related to
SAA business and committee activities, but instead I wanted more of the pages to be
dedicated to articles that consider timely issues related to archaeological practice, a
trend developed by Mark Aldenderfer. As Figure 1 (below) illustrates, the Associate Editors and I have been successful in this regard; content on SAA business and committee activities made up 39% of Volume 18 of the SAA Bulletin but a better-balanced 19%
of Volume 6 of The SAA Archaeological Record, while the proportion of content dedicated to articles grew from 37% to 72%.
Inquiries and submissions should be
addressed directly to them. The SAA
Archaeological Record is provided free to
members and institutional subscribers to
American Antiquity and Latin American
Antiquity worldwide. The SAA Archaeological Record can be found on the Web in PDF
format at
Changing Content of the SAA-AR
80%
70%
60%
Past issues of the SAA Bulletin can be
found at
www.saa.org/publications/
saabulletin/index.html.
Copyright © 2007 by the
Society for American Archaeology.
All Rights Reserved
Manager, Publications:
John Neikirk
Design: Victoria Russell
Papertiger Studio •Washington, DC
Volume Proportion
www.saa.org/publications/
thesaaarchrec/index.html.
50%
Business
Committees
News
Articles
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Production: Peter Lindeman
Oakland Street Publishing • Arlington, VA
Vol. 18
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
Volume Number
Vol. 4
Vol. 5
Vol. 6
>EDITOR’S CORNER, continued on page 37
2
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Geoarchaelogy
eing long-term practitioners in the
fields of geoarchaeology and archaeological geology, we read with interest
the thoughtful two-part piece by Joseph
Schuldenrein on their current definitions (The SAA Archaeological Record
6[5]:11–14, 7[1]:16–24). We here forward
other considerations on this topic based
on experience starting well before either
field was identified in any formal way.
One of us is a geologist with a wide
range of interest across the earth sciences, and the other is an archaeologist,
but again with wide culture historical
interests across both anthropology and
geology.
B
Although we agree with Schuldenrein
that geoarchaeology addresses the interface between earth sciences and archaeology, saying that archaeological problems form the basis of the inquiry does
not go quite far enough. For us, there
must be geological investigation to qualify for geoarchaeology, and we have used
the term sparingly only in the title of
papers coauthored by ourselves or with
others in the opposite field to our major
focus. Thus, we would not use “geoarchaeology” without archaeological or
geological colleagues as coauthors to be
confident either of us was staying on the
disciplinary rails of the field where we
did not command the wider knowledge
of our coauthor. There should always be
solid geology and sound archaeology in
the overall mix of geoarchaeology.
Where there is no solid archaeology in
the mix (i.e., just geology of interest to
archaeology), we would not use the term
“geoarchaeology” in a title.
When Schuldenrein defines archaeological geology as referring to a thematic
bias in which geology is the focus and
archaeology the investigative technique,
we think he has things essentially backwards. Certainly his definition would
surprise nearly all the members of the
Archaeological Geology Division of the
Geological Society of America (none of
whom are archaeologists and would
probably decline to conduct research in
that field as a solo effort). The term “geological archaeology” would therefore
seem a useful addition. In short, to us,
the noun is the definer and the modifier
is the qualifier. Geoarchaeology is
archaeology pursued with a geological
bent using geological methods, while
archaeological geology is geology pursued with archaeological problems in
mind but not using archaeological
methods (archaeologists can do their
field investigations quite well enough
for themselves).
An interesting question is whether any
younger researchers will arise who are
interdisciplinary
geoarchaeologists
themselves, with little need in many
instances to call on team efforts. We suspect probably not. When one of us
(Dickinson) was department head of
Geology at the University of Arizona,
Vance Haynes and he worked out a
means for graduate students to major in
either geology or archaeology and minor
in the other. There have been few if any
takers. The other of us (Green) worked
his way up the academic ladder during
which a dual basis was laid by means of
a double degree, a B.A. in Anthropology
and B.Sc. in Geology at the University of
New Mexico. This allowed courses in
geology to continue to be part of his skill
mix at the Ph.D. level at Harvard. The
problem is that both fields are large and
complex enough in themselves. To be a
sound modern geologist is a challenge
without worrying about archaeology,
which has a social science dimension in
an anthropological direction that simply
cannot be finessed. An archaeologist
with no insights into anthropology
would be like a geologist with no
insights into chemistry. Incomplete and
intellectually crippled, it becomes ever
harder for all but a very few practitioners
in either discipline to plow both furrows
simultaneously.
We both have experienced this in our
research efforts. As a geologist working
with Pacific archaeological colleagues,
Dickinson knows a lot by osmosis about
Pacific sites and Lapita decorations.
However, it is the geological identification of the temper in sherds, changes in
sea levels, and tracking former shorelines that are his forte. He would never
trust himself to evaluate the multiple
uses people made any given archaeological site or try to codify Lapita motifs.
Moreover, there is a huge corpus of
social science savvy that has to go into
such interpretations. Nor would he trust
archaeologists, even if carefully coached,
to read the paleoshoreline record of an
island with full fidelity. Thus, in joint
publications over the years, and even in
single-authored ones, a surer result
always derives if there has been significant input through joint efforts or commentary from the opposite perspective.
We are reminded of the old Zen proverb:
“There are many paths through the
world and you can follow any one you
choose. But you cannot walk two paths
at the same time.”
In Part II of Schuldenrein’s article, he
canvases the issues posed by cultural
resource management that often require
investigations using geoarchaeology and
geological archaeology. He begins that
section of his article with the observation that “there is no codified structure
for geoarchaeological certification.” And
he ends it with a statement that future
opportunities for geoarchaeologists will
surface in nontraditional venues. As a
result, he thinks that while academic
geoarchaeology may open up incrementally, it will certainly not be in line with
current and future demands of the commercial section that solicits input from
the earth sciences. Although in large
part agreeing with these views, we
would again stress the need at times for
substantial joint archaeological and geological involvement in many such investigations. Moreover, we retain the
doubts expressed above as to whether
specially formulated academic programs
combining the two will in fact eventuate,
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
3
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
even incrementally, as realistic mainstream options.
Schuldenrein certainly has his heart in
the right place in respect to the potential
within a mix of geology and archaeology.
However, a stronger input from the geological portion of the mix seems a sine
qua non, given that few archaeologists or
geologists are ever going to have the
expertise to combine these fields on
their own.
William R. Dickinson
Professor Emeritus of Geoscience
University of Arizona
Roger C. Green
Emeritus Professor of Prehistory
University of Auckland
Natural History
e, the undersigned, are all affiliated with the scientific staff of the
American Museum of Natural History.
We join together to express our concern
about publication of “On the Trail of the
Anasazi” by Craig Childs, the cover article in the March 2007 issue of Natural
History magazine.
W
We question the judgment of the editorial staff of Natural History magazine in
publishing an article that denigrates
American Indian peoples; seriously misrepresents the work, ideas, and practices
of professional anthropologists actively
working in the American Southwest;
and encourages unethical, disrespectful,
and possibly illegal behavior.
Employing the tired literary conceit of a
mysterious lost civilization, Childs
4
knowingly elects to perpetuate the
name “Anasazi,” a term he explains is
offensive to Pueblo Indians when
applied to their forebears because it is a
Navajo word meaning “ancestors of the
enemy.” We have to ask why Natural
History would publish a story that intentionally insults the descendants of the
ancient people who are the subject of
the narrative.
By contrast, the contemporary community of professional archaeologists
acknowledges the cultural and historical
linkage of present-day Pueblo people
with their ancestors by using the term
“Ancestral Pueblo,” a name that explicitly avoids the misleading and pejorative
connotations of “Anasazi.”
We further object to the article’s
endorsement of visiting ancestral sites,
sacred places to living Pueblo Indians,
while drunk in the dark of night, disrespecting both the living and the dead.
Further, the subterfuge of his party in
Mexico, first presenting themselves as
archaeologists, then denying this and
recasting their role as professors and
students engaged in a semester of field
studies, is reprehensible and dishonest.
A professional archaeologist engaged in
field studies in Mexico would only do so
with the permission of the national government, and the article makes no suggestion that Childs had such permission. This dishonesty with the people of
Mexico damages the reputation of legitimate archaeologists who currently work
and will work in Mexico in the future.
This article is not even good journalism
because it fails to answer the question
posed in the subtitle: “What became of
their inhabitants?” These people did not
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
mysteriously vanish. As acknowledged
by all, their descendants live at Hopi and
other Pueblo Indian villages throughout
the U.S. Southwest. By seeming to pander to public fascination with false stories of lost civilizations, Childs misses
the opportunity to truly educate readers
about the rich history that connects
Ancestral Pueblo peoples with their living descendants in Arizona and New
Mexico. This type of reporting demeans
Natural History magazine.
We think it necessary to emphasize that
the members of the scientific community at the American Museum of Natural
History have no relationship to the production of Natural History magazine. In
2002, the American Museum of Natural
History sold the magazine to a private
company, and since that date, museum
scientists have had no voice in the content of the magazine.
Linda Cordell, Research Associate
Division of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History
T. J. Ferguson, Research Associate
Division of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History
David Hurst Thomas, Curator
Division of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History
Laurie Webster, Research Associate
Division of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History
Peter Whiteley, Curator
Division of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History
FROM THE PRESIDENT
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dean Snow
Dean Snow is President of the Society for American Archaeology.
Dear Colleagues:
By now, over 10,000 archaeologists, including all SAA members,
should have received the completely revised 2008 Call for Submissions for the Society for American Archaeology’s 73rd
Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada, March 26–30, 2008.
I want to take a moment to highlight some of the new and
important information you will need to know if you are planning on participating in the Vancouver meeting.
The SAA Board of Directors has determined that beginning
with the 2008 annual meeting, the standard submission format
for participation in an SAA annual meeting will be electronic via
the web. This change is an acknowledgment that the majority of
meeting participants are now submitting electronically. Therefore, we are excited about the June 1st launch of a new webbased submission system for the 2008 meeting. Please note that
traditional hardcopy submissions will still be accepted at an
additional cost of $25.00. The Executive Director may exempt
this additional service fee for legitimate reasons where contributors can not access/use the web.
One of the most important features to note about the new system is the increased control for session organizers. Organizers
create their session by inviting participants to submit via auto-
mated email. This means organizers must obtain the full name
and valid email address for each participant. Users of the webbased system can also make changes to their submissions at any
time before the grace period ends. With any web-based submission, there are no change fees, nor are there any late fees. Should
you choose to submit via hardcopy forms, these fees are still
applicable. The submissions deadline is Wednesday, September
5, 2007, which is followed by a grace period ending on September 12, 2007. Please remember that submissions cannot be
accepted once the grace period ends.
We are excited to put this new technology to work for the Society, and anticipate that the new system will facilitate the submissions process and streamline the administration for the
SAA Program Committee. I hope to see you in Vancouver next
March.
Sincerely,
Dean Snow
President
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
5
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS
ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE EXPERIENCE ECONOMY
Cornelius Holtorf
Cornelius Holtorf is Assistant Professor in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology and Ancient History,
University of Lund, Sweden.
A
rchaeology has become a potent element in themed environments that abound in contemporary
popular culture. This short article reviews the archaeological motifs that can be found in environments such as Disneyland and on the Las Vegas Strip. They provide a set of imagery to which
people can easily relate and that immerses them in a world different from the normal routines and
restrictions of everyday life. Archaeology provides experiences that relate very closely to people’s fantasies, dreams, and desires. I argue that in the emerging “Experience Economy,” archaeologists need to
ask what kind of experiences they can offer to society. My conclusion is that professional archaeologists
have more to learn from Las Vegas than they have to fear it.
Las Vegas Archaeology
The first Las Vegas resort to embody consistently an archaeological or historical theme was Caesars
Palace, opened in 1966 (Malamud 1998). It signifies the popular myth of a decadent and opulent Rome
associated with excess and indulgence as it is depicted in movies like Ben Hur (1959), Cleopatra (1963),
or Gladiator (2000). Arguably, Caesars Palace creates a museum for the mass audience, a museum free
of admission fees, velvet ropes, tedious labels, and Plexiglas panels, and (falsely) appearing to be free of
security guards. The hotel-casino is thus a carrier of culture without many of the explicit behavioral constraints and class implications found in many ordinary museums.
Completed in 1993 in the shape of the world’s largest pyramid, and with a gigantic sphinx in front of it,
the Luxor is another Las Vegas resort (Figure 1). It embraces the clichés of ancient Egypt, incorporating
pyramids, pharaohs, mummies, occult mysteries, fabulous wealth, and archaeological excavations. An
“authentic” reproduction of Tutankhamen’s tomb as it looked when Howard Carter opened it in 1922
lets the common tourist slip into the role of the privileged archaeologist discovering wonderful things
(Malamud 2001:35). The main lobbies of the building are filled with full-scale Egyptian architecture,
and walls, wardrobes, and bed linen in each room are adorned with Egyptian murals and hieroglyphics.
The local What’s On magazine accordingly proclaims that the Luxor is “as much a museum as it is a
hotel and casino.”
The success of both resorts—like all the others along the Vegas Strip—are indicative of some economic
trends in late 20th- and early 21st-century Western societies. Arguably, people are increasingly consuming products by consuming experiences. As the American economists Joseph Pine and James Gilmore
argued in their book, The Experience Economy (1999:25), “businesses that relegate themselves to the
diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant.” Instead, businesses now need to
offer experiences to people. These experiences are first and foremost about engaging people sensually,
cognitively, socially, culturally, and emotionally. As part of this process, consumption is increasingly
linked to signification, lifestyle, and identity. We all are buying products as potent signifiers of who (we
think) we are and who we would like to be. People thus consume what brings them in touch with their
own collective imaginations and fantasies (Gottdiener 1997:126–128, 153–154; Jensen 1999). This is precisely the benefit of “theming.” Themed environments are sets of imagery to which people can easily
6
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
relate and that immerses them in a world different from the normal routines and restrictions of everyday life (Gottdiener 1997).
The Romans in Caesars Palace and the Egyptians in the Luxor
create an atmosphere of exotic luxury metaphorically transporting
guests into some other world. That world is removed from daily
life, its conventional responsibilities, and its controlling mechanisms, instead encouraging fantasy—and of course spending,
which is what Las Vegas and many other themed environments
are all about.
Theming draws, in part, on the “virtual capital” that consumers
have acquired from mass media such as cinema and especially
television (Hall and Bombardella 2005:9; Hennig 1999:94–101).
In that way, much popular culture does not represent, or misrepresent, an existing reality, but rather it interprets other popular
culture. In Las Vegas, it is possible to observe from a single vantage point representations that we can all relate to from media
such as Discovery Channel and National Geographic magazine: a
giant Easter Island sculpted head, an immense lion, a huge
medieval castle, and a giant Sphinx in front of a pyramid (Gottdiener 1997:106). As this short list indicates, many ideas in popular
culture draw on historical or archaeological themes.
Figure 1: Learning from Egypt—the Luxor resort at Las Vegas.
Photo credit: Cornelius Holtorf 2001.
Archaeology in Demand
There can be no doubt that archaeology as a discipline embodies and evokes motifs that are in particular demand in Western popular culture. These recurring motifs include but are not restricted to the following (see also Holtorf 2005):
•
•
•
•
•
new discoveries of treasure,
the solution of great mysteries,
technological wizardry and scientific advancement,
a nostalgia for ancient worlds, and
drama in exotic locations.
These motifs are closely related to some major themes, out of which the fantasies of Hollywood, Las
Vegas, and many theme parks are made (Gottdiener 1997:151–152). Archaeology has therefore much to
offer to popular culture. Wonderful treasures, mysteries of ancient civilizations, appealing reconstructions of past ways of life, and dramatic stories about fieldwork in remote places have always been the most
important dimensions of archaeology in popular culture. They are arguably at their current best in Disneyland’s exhilarating Indiana Jones Adventure ride through the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, based on
elements of the quintessential movie archaeologist.
Archaeologists tend to lament the reduction of their discipline to just very few dimensions among
which the archaeological adventure is most prominent. But there is another way of looking at this.
Archaeology has become a very widely recognized and attractive brand that many people value—and
happily spend money on (Holtorf 2007). Archaeologists are thus in the enviable position that they can
easily connect with some of our time’s most widespread fantasies, dreams, and desires. That capital is
what themed environments, like Disneyland, are tapping into when they feature archaeological motifs.
For example, the Forbidden Kingdom featuring the Tomb Blaster ride at Chessington World of Adventures
near London evokes many aspects of the classic assemblage usually associated with Indiana Jones (Figure 2). Evidently, the popular fascination with archaeology lies on a different level than professional
archaeologists would hope for. Many of the engaging experiences that archaeology supplies draw more
on the exciting process of doing archaeology than on any particularly desirable insights about a past that
really once existed. It is the tomb raiding, the treasure hunting, the solving of mysteries, and the revealing
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
7
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
of truths that move millions (Holtorf 2007: Chapter 5), not the
latest addition to ceramic typology or settlement distribution
patterns. By the same token, it is not the historical accuracy and
genuineness of reconstructed ancient sites and monuments that
is meaningful to the majority of tourists, but the value they have
as appealing stage sets evoking cultural capital (Gruffudd et al.
1999; Hennig 1999).
Asking what archaeology can contribute to the contemporary
world means exploring what kind of experiences it can offer.
Archaeology is increasingly evoking clichés and metaphors
about itself rather than actual truths about the past. This is no
coincidence. We have been witnessing the transition to the
“Experience Society” (Schulze 1993). In that society, archaeology
requires a new profile (Moore 2006). In the light of a number of
particular significant themes that have come to define the subject of archaeology in the popular domain, the entire field may
need to be rethought—as will the way that archaeologists themselves have been relating to their popular representations
(Holtorf 2007:Chapters 6–7). The main issue is no longer how
archaeologists can make those people who love Indiana Jones, treas- Figure 2: Archaeology in demand at Chessington World of Adventures.
Photo credit: Cornelius Holtorf 2002.
ure hunting, and revelations about ancient mysteries more interested
in their own version of archaeology; the issue is rather what these
popular concepts can tell the professionals about popular themes and
interests that they had better address themselves.
What Archaeologists Can Learn from Theme Parks
The American public historian Mike Wallace (1985:33) speculated in a
now-classic essay that Walt Disney may have taught people more history
through his theme parks, in a more memorable way, than they ever
learned in school. A similar statement could be made about visitors to Las
Vegas. The German anthropologist Gottfried Korff (1994:223–226) suggested that Disneyland could serve as a model for successful museum
didactics—precisely because it informs visitors only discreetly, casually,
and in an entertaining way. However, scrutinizing the kind of “history”
people learn in themed environments may not always lead to results that
at first seem very commendable. They may indeed be able to convey to
visitors a kind of historical consciousness, but they do this by referring to
a past that never happened. Disneyfied history, for example, improves the
past and represents what history should have been like. It celebrates
America, technological progress, and nostalgic memory. It hides wars,
political and social conflicts, and human misery (Fjellman 1992:Chapter 4;
Wallace 1985). Such history is false inasmuch as it is highly selective and
simplistic rather than balanced and suitably complex, celebratory rather
than critical, playful rather than serious, and profit-oriented rather than
educational (Figure 3).
It is easy to list the flaws and inaccuracies of historical representations in
themed environments, and honorable to try and correct them. But it is
often conveniently forgotten that, arguably, traditionally taught history is
false too. False in that all accounts of the past are constructed in the present and to some extent invented (Holtorf 2005:Chapter 1). False in that historical curricula are necessarily selective and often carry politically motivat-
8
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Figure 3: Encountering the real Caesar outside Caesars Palace,
Las Vegas. Photo credit: Cornelius Holtorf 2001.
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
ed agendas. False in that many national histories are celebratory and not at
all suitably critical about certain questions. False in that the content of both
academic publications and textbooks are heavily influenced by commercial
interests of large publishers. False in that a range of social factors influences what gets researched and published, and what does not.
What the creators of Caesars Palace and the Luxor resort in Las Vegas realized is that accounts of both archaeology and the past can appeal to people
in a wide range of ways, among which the possible gain of knowledge
about science and past realities is only one. The realism provided by
themed environments focuses not on the archaeologists’ own perception of
the field or on the past as-it-really-was, but on the visitors’ present engagement with archaeology and the past. That engagement, typically facilitated
by rides or other strong experiences, involves sensual impressions that
engender feelings and emotions that people treasure (Figure 4). Gaynor
Bagnall (1996) argued that this kind of emotional realism is underpinned
by a desire for the experience to be genuine and based in fact. But many
people neither seek historical veracity in themed environments nor mind
its absence. Whether adults or children, they simply enjoy the sensual stimuli and playful experiences of imaginary spaces (Hennig 1999). Contrary to
Bagnall’s conclusions, I have thus argued elsewhere that a superficial
appearance of factuality that is not actually believed can be sufficient to
ensure emotional satisfaction (Holtorf 2005:Chapter 7).
Figure 4: Emotional satisfaction in the Experience Economy:
There are, of course, dangers in how themed experiences affect people’s
Smells of the tomb of Tutankhamen recreated. Seen at The
choices, effectively fooling them about realities that are less than real (FjellTutankhamen Exhibition, Dorchester. Photo credit: Cornelius
man 1992; Hall and Bombardella 2005; Malamud 1998). More often than
Holtorf 2002. (The same product is also available online at
not, themed environments are commercially driven and seek to maximize
http://www.whshop.com/acatalog/Souvenirs.html)
profits by providing potential customers with pleasurable experiences for as
long as possible. What is worse, themed environments can suggest to people an outlook on society that
is adverse to reform by compensating for existing deficiencies and injustices. For some, themed environments are therefore purely about escapism rather than engagement with the world around us.
But even such escapes can be seen as a way of engaging with real deficiencies and reforming society.
Those visiting themed environments do not follow imaginary but real desires and needs to escape
(Maltby 1989:15–16). Most professional archaeology today is not in the education but in the storytelling
business. Storytelling and the foregrounding of experiences have become central to the society in which
we live today. Appropriate stories and experiences contribute to peoples’ social identities and can give
inspiration, meaning, and happiness to their lives (Gruffudd et al. 1999; Jensen 1999; Pine and Gilmore
1999; Schulze 1993). We are all individuals, but we share collective fantasies. Society at large benefits
from citizens who occasionally fulfill their dreams by taking part in imaginary adventures. Making such
dreams temporarily come true can later let the familiar routines appear desirable again (Hennig
1999:89–93; Maltby 1989:14). In contributing to some of the themes and stories that are enjoyed by
many, popular archaeology is thus directly improving peoples’ quality of life.
Intriguingly, the American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan argued that essentially all culture is, “in a fundamental sense, a mechanism of escape.” Culture, as he defined it, is the result of an unwillingness “to accept
‘what is the case’ (reality)” when it seems either “unjust or too severely constraining” (Tuan 1998: 27).
Can Disneyland accordingly be described as the realization of an ideal culture that removes some
unnecessary constraints of our society?
Concluding Thoughts
My argument is not that archaeologists should cease to be educational and critical. Instead, their critique should be based on evaluations of the total impact of archaeological experiences on society. For
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
9
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
archaeologists to take on producers of popular culture such as Hollywood and Disneyland with a view
to correcting their historical or scientific “mistakes” is not only a hopeless undertaking but ultimately
also counterproductive. We would put at risk one of the most significant assets of archaeology in the
Experience Economy: its brand value. We would also put at risk the wide appeal and high degree of
“customer satisfaction” that archaeology has been enjoying for so long in popular culture (Holtorf 2007).
Learning from Las Vegas means learning to embrace and build upon the amazing fact that archaeologists can connect so well with some of the most widespread fantasies, dreams, and desires that people
have today.
Addressing the skeptic’s question about the benefits of archaeology (Minnis 2006), I am suggesting that
the greatest value of archaeology in society lies in providing people with what they most desire from
archaeology: great stories both about the past and about archaeological research.
Acknowledgments
This paper originated from a session “What are we to make of the popular appeal of archaeology in the
media and popular culture?” which I co-organized with George S. Smith at the 11th Annual Meeting of
the European Association of Archaeologists in Cork, Ireland, September 2005.
References Cited
Bagnall, G.
1996 Consuming the Past. In Consumption Matters: the Production and Experience of Consumption, edited by S.
Edgell, K. Hetherington, and A. Wade, pp. 227–247. Blackwell, Oxford.
Fjellman, S.
1992 Vinyl Leaves. Walt Disney World and America. Westview, Boulder.
Gottdiener, M.
1997 The Theming of America. Dreams, Visions and Commercial Spaces. Westview Press, Boulder.
Gruffudd, P., D. T Herbert, and A. Piccini
1999 ‘Good to Think’: Social Constructions of Celtic Heritage in Wales. Environment and Planning D: Society and
Space 17:705–721.
Hall, M., and P. Bombardella
2005 Las Vegas in Africa. Journal of Social Archaeology 5:5–24.
Hennig, C.
1999 Reiselust. Touristen, Tourismus und Urlaubskultur. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.
Holtorf, C.
2005 From Stonehenge to Las Vegas. Archaeology as Popular Culture. Altamira, Walnut Creek.
2007 Archaeology is a Brand! The Meaning of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture. Illustrated by Quentin
Drew. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek.
Jensen, R.
1999 The Dream Society. How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination will Transform Your Business.
McGraw-Hill, New York.
Korff, G.
1994 Euro Disney und Disney-Diskurse. Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 90:207–232.
Malamud, M.
1998 As the Romans Did? Theming Ancient Rome in Contemporary Las Vegas. Arion 3rd Series 6(2): 11–39.
2001 Pyramids in Las Vegas and in Outer Space: Ancient Egypt in Twentieth-Century American Architecture and
Film. Journal of Popular Culture 34:31–47.
Maltby, R.
1989 Introduction. In Dreams for Sale. Popular Culture in the 20th Century, edited by R. Maltby, pp. 8–19. Harrap,
London.
Minnis, P.
2006 Answering the Skeptic’s Question. The SAA Archaeological Record 6(5):17–20.
>HOLTORF, continued on page 25
10
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
BRITISH NATIONAL PRESS COVERAGE
OF THE 1998 STERKFONTEIN HOMININ
FOSSIL DISCOVERY
Karol Kulik
Karol Kulik is in the Archaeology Department at the University of Southampton.
T
he debate about the relationship between archaeology and
the media has for too long been based on anecdote rather
than evidence and couched in adversarial language. To
understand archaeological communication and the role that
archaeologists, the media, and the public play in it, we need to
approach the subject more rigorously, develop a more sophisticated vocabulary, and support a long-term research agenda that
produces a substantial body of theoretical work, surveys, and
case studies. This summary of how the British national press
covered the 1998 announcement of hominin fossil finds at
Sterkfontein in South Africa suggests some ways in which
media “artifacts” can be studied and is offered as a contribution
toward this research agenda.
Understanding Paleoanthropology and the Media
It is important to reflect first on why paleoanthropology is a
newsworthy but complex subject for journalists to cover.
Although not directly relevant to people’s daily lives, paleoanthropological news is nonetheless deemed newsworthy largely
because the search for human origins is an intrinsically human
scientific endeavor whose narrative can be framed as a quest
and whose central character is the illusive “missing link,” one of
science’s more enduring metaphors. That the quest often seems
like a race between competitive anthropologists only adds to its
appeal. As Meave Leakey remarked in one of the Sterkfontein
articles (Kiley 1998), “the arguments are often as much about
testosterone as science.”
This race accelerated between 1994 and 2004, when Sterkfontein was one of a dozen important “missing link” finds
announced in the British press. The speed at which new information was having to be assimilated presented challenges to
those inside and outside the profession. For science editors and
journalists on British dailies—with no regular science feature
sections in which to report this news—most of these stories had
to be treated as “hard news,” if they were to be covered at all.
This meant they had to vie with other breaking news for space
and be described in the more unambiguous or “closed” discourse associated with hard news reporting. Journalists, with or
without specialist expertise, would have to digest and verify the
claims being made, judge their relative importance, understand
their context, and work out how to get all this across to their specific readerships. Would readers, for example, require a recapitulation of current thinking about hominin evolution to position
the new find within some kind of framework, and if so, how
best could this be achieved?
Set against these difficulties in communicating paleoanthropological news is the way that much of it is released to the news
media. This is usually through self-authored articles in peerreviewed journals like Science and Nature, via press releases and
news conferences, or sometimes both. This channeling of news
release means that most major announcements are prepackaged, often professionally vetted in advance, and tend to appear
in the news media on the same day. Given this stage-managed
release, it is not surprising that the resulting coverage tends to
be homogenized and largely uncritical—even across the broad
spectrum of daily papers that constitute the British national
press.
In the late 1990s, only 49 percent of the British public claimed to
get their daily news from newspapers, down from 85–90 percent
in the 1960s (Tunstall 1996:223; Walker 2000). Nevertheless,
some 28 million people were reading one or more of the 10
national dailies at the time of the Sterkfontein announcement
(Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, The Guardian, 23 September 1999, p. 9). Over half of them were reading one of the three
“downmarket tabloids” (The Sun, Daily Mirror, and Daily Star).
Over a quarter chose one of the two “midmarket tabloids” (Daily
Mail and Daily Express), and less than a quarter read one of the
five “upmarket broadsheets” or “qualities” (Times, Financial
Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and Independent). Although traditional brand loyalties have somewhat broken down (Tunstall
1996:221), who reads which paper is still seen to depend on age,
socioeconomic and educational levels, and political persuasion.
In broad terms, the downmarket tabloids attract a younger (44
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
11
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
percent), male (58 percent), and working class (71 percent) readership; the midmarkets, an older (39 percent), gender-equal, and
professional (62.5 percent) readership; and readers of the broadsheets tend to be middle-aged (39 percent), professional (57 percent) men (61 percent) (Seymour-Ure 1996:144–147).
Most relevantly, in a survey in 1993–1994, only 7 percent of all
adults named “science and technology” as items they “specially
chose” to read in their newspapers, although the readers of The
Times (at 17 percent) chose it almost twice as often as Daily Mail
readers (at 9 percent) and three times more than Sun readers (at
6 percent) (Tunstall 1996: 217). On the face of it, such statistics
seem to justify newspaper editors investing differently in the
amount and nature of their scientific news coverage. Certainly,
the traditional view of the scientific community has been that
the public understanding of science was being ill-served by the
British press and that only the broadsheets provided serious scientific news (Fenton et al. 1998: 40; Hargreaves and Ferguson
2000; Stone 1989:201). The Sterkfontein coverage offers an
opportunity to test these views.
The Sterkfontein Media Coverage
Although South Africa had spawned the search for human origins with the discovery of the first Australopithecine fossil in
1924, it had not produced a find of world significance since the
late 1940s, the search’s focus having instead shifted to East
Africa. In 1997, the media spotlight returned to South Africa
when Ron Clarke of the University of Witwatersrand
announced to the press his discovery at Sterkfontein of 12 foot
and leg bones of a hominin that showed signs of both bipedal
and tree-climbing ability. Having pieced together these remains
from boxes of previously collected cave fossils, Clarke was convinced that the rest of the specimen (nicknamed “Little Foot”
and presumed to be an Australopithecine) was “still encased in
the cave” (Clarke 1998:461–462). In September 1998, his team
indeed found matching lower body bones, a mandible and cranium. Their stratigraphic location permitted a dating of around
3.5 million years old—in other words, a skeleton perhaps more
complete and older than “Lucy,” the A. afarensis found in Kenya
in 1974. Clarke reported these finds in an article for the South
African Journal of Science in October 1998. Two months later, on
December 9th, Little Foot made its second media appearance at
a packed international news conference.
The news should have broken that night on television, but that
morning, The Times pre-empted all the British media with a
front-page story leaked to their local correspondent. The article
offered only rudimentary details about the find and was padded
out with recycled or irrelevant information. That its publication
was seen to break “the rules of scientific disclosure” was even
referred to in the next day’s Financial Times’s editorial (p. 19).
On December 10th, eight dailies (including The Times again, but
only one downmarket paper, the Daily Mirror) covered the story.
12
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
However, the same day had also seen the announcement of
another South African fossil find: that of a 250-million-year-old
giant reptile, a Gorgonopsid. Which papers would cover which
story and how?
Four of the broadsheets did not report on the Gorgonopsid. Recognizing both stories as news, the other four papers used different means to signal their relative importance. The Express
and Telegraph placed it as a subsidiary story to Little Foot, while
the Daily Mirror chose to lead with the Gorgon, illustrated with
a lurid green cartoon, and marginalized the hominin news at
the bottom of the text. Uniquely, the Daily Mail found a way of
combining both stories under one headline (“The Skeleton
Keys”), and although it reproduced the Gorgon cartoon without
color, its more detailed hominin graphic reconstruction (as well
as the text) suggested that it was the more serious news. More
telling is the way the Daily Mail telegraphed the basic facts
about the find in its illustration by appending several information boxes. This habit of providing readers with both textual and
visual ways of consuming news is normally associated with the
tabloid press (Tunstall 1996: 11), but it appears in many of the
broadsheets’ Sterkfontein coverage. In fact, three-quarters of the
papers devoted from a third to over half of their Little Foot coverage to illustration.
Media Strategies
Illustration is clearly seen by the British press as an appropriate
way to summarize a scientific story, provide context, attract
readers, and cater to their different levels of interest. Moser
(1998) and Gould (1997), amongst others, have focused attention on the iconography of human origins and on, as Gould
(1997:249) says, “the central role of pictures, graphs, and other
forms of visual representation in channeling and constraining
our thought.” In “missing link” stories, illustration is a potent
tool for giving “meaning” to skeletal evidence and for describing
complex ideas or frameworks likely to be indigestible if
explained in words alone. For instance, maps would be used in
the Sterkfontein coverage not merely to locate the site, but to
relay economically, through pointers to other sites, a message
about the pan-African nature of hominin evolution.
Photographs of the bones, the finders, and of earlier hominin
discoveries were conventionally employed to authenticate and
personalize the news or to provide an historical context. Many
papers used pictures of the foot bones, rather than the still
encased skull and new bones, and one questions how meaningful these pictures were to the majority of readers. In particular,
The Independent’s large reproduction of the foot bones in
extreme close-up and turned sideways to fit a landscape layout
confirms a trend in that paper’s (and the Guardian’s) archaeological coverage—that of illustrating for aesthetic effect or reader attention rather than for information. Another trend is that
the broadsheets tend to reproduce the photographic material
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
made available by sources, whereas the midmarket papers prefer to adapt this material through graphic reconstructions, as
they did with Sterkfontein. These reconstructions make these
papers’ coverage more distinctive and the find more immediately comprehensible to readers, as they derive from a long tradition of popular illustrations of prehistoric “ape-men.”
The Express, Telegraph, and Guardian also attempted to explain
Little Foot’s place in the current schema of hominin evolution
through illustrated time lines. The Express prioritized accessibility and presented a horizontal “march of progress” from ape
to man in which the cartoonish figures are misaligned to the
dates and two are in the wrong order. The Telegraph took the vertical route by employing a bar graph with up-to-date information. Its chart is full of details, but not necessarily full of meaning. The Guardian found a third way by using photographs of
only four finds (in which “Lucy” is given the skull of “Mrs.
Ples”), each accompanied by lengthy captions summarizing
their discovery, location, age, and significance. Thus, like the
Mail, the Guardian offered readers the opportunity to scan this
information rather than read the article. The flaws in these time
lines underscore the difficulty of making complex information
digestible even in visual terms, but these attempts do demonstrate the investment that British papers are willing to make to
provide some context for their readers.
In terms of content, the coverage’s most noticeable feature was
its homogeneity, both in the communication of basic facts and in
its narrative framing as a detective story. All of the broadsheets,
bar The Independent, covered the story more extensively than the
tabloids, using 3–4 times the number of words, elaborating in
greater detail the detective story, and offering more scientific
information. The coverage’s homogeneity does, however, raise
questions. By prepackaging the news—by providing photographs and experts on hand to confirm the find’s significance—
the finders clearly made it easier for journalists to report on and
illustrate the story. This may have ensured that the coverage
would not be wildly unpredictable, but it also effectively guaranteed that the news would not be questioned or scrutinized. Only
a few outside experts were called on to comment on the find, and
thus the claims being made for Little Foot were not in any real
sense investigated or challenged by the British press.
Concluding Thoughts
In summary, that eight out of 10 national dailies covered the Little Foot announcement does indicate, first and foremost, that the
British press does consider such stories to be newsworthy
despite the complexity of the subject. This should not, however,
blind us to the fact that half of the country’s newspaper-reading
public never received the news. Second, while this study suggests that the public understanding of science is not ill-served by
the British press, it largely supports the contention that broadsheets provide more in-depth science coverage than tabloids. Yet,
the fact that both tabloids and broadsheets illustrated this story
so heavily could be seen as a more general sign of a growing
“tabloidization” of British newspapers. This trend may be accelerated by the recent change from broadsheet to tabloid formats
of the Independent, Times, and Guardian. It is important to note,
however, that when The Times was published in both broadsheet
and tabloid editions, its tabloid version of the discovery of Homo
floresiensis in October 2004 carried 78 percent more coverage
than its broadsheet version. Thus, it is not yet clear what effect
the demise of broadsheets will have on the reporting of paleoanthropological or archaeological news. Finally, in analyzing press
coverage, this study suggests that all sectors of the British press
deserve equal scrutiny and that, given their reliance on illustration, an article’s form must be accorded as much attention as its
content. Above all, we need to pay more attention to how news is
released, as this has a significant impact on the outcome. If we
think it is unhealthy—for our profession, for science journalism,
and for the public—that our news stories are not properly scrutinized, then perhaps we have to rely less on stage-managed
news conferences and more on establishing regular links with
journalists to engage them in the process and progress of our
work, not just in its results.
References Cited
Clarke, R. J.
1998 First Ever Discovery of a Well-Preserved Skull and Associated
Skeleton of Australopithecus South African Journal of Science
94(10):460–463.
Fenton, N., A. Bryman, and D. Deacon
1998 Mediating Social Science. Sage Publications, London.
Gould, S. J.
1997 Dinosaur in a Haystack. Penguin, London.
Hargreaves, I., and G. Ferguson
2000 Who’s Misunderstanding Whom? Science, Society and the Media.
Economic and Social Research Council, Swindon, UK.
Kiley, R.
1998 British Scientist Discovers 4ft-Tall ‘Missing Link.’ The Times.
10 December: 15.
Moser, S.
1998 Ancestral Images: The Iconography of Human Origins. Sutton
Publishing, Stroud.
Seymour-Ure, C.
1996 The British Press and Broadcasting since 1945. Blackwell, Oxford.
Stone, P. G.
1989 Interpretation and Uses of the Past in Modern Britain and
Europe. In Who Needs the Past? Indigenous Values and Archaeology, edited by R. Layton, pp. 195–206. Routledge, London.
Tunstall, J.
1996 Newspaper Power: The New National Press in Britain. Clarendon
Press, Oxford.
Walker, D.
2000 On the Slant. The Guardian. 3 October:21.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
13
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE “EDUCATED PUBLIC”
A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE UNIVERSITY
David Pokotylo
David Pokotylo is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
S
urveys of public perceptions of archaeology in Canada and
the U.S. have identified differences with respect to age
and education in adult populations (i.e., over 18 years of
age) and have discussed challenges the profession must address
to enlighten and educate an even wider public (Pokotylo 2002;
Pokotylo and Guppy 1999; Pokotylo and Mason 1991; Ramos
and Duganne 2000). A pressing question is the perspective of
youth, a group that many public archaeologists consider critical
to fostering positive public opinion about archaeology (Herscher and McManamon 1995; Little 2001; Smardz and Smith 2000).
This article presents some initial results of a continuing study
of a particular age-education target group—university undergraduate students age 25 and under—to address the following
questions:
• How do the archaeological perspectives of university students compare to general public patterns?
• Are people with an academic background sufficient to enter
university more “archaeology friendly” than the general public?
• What opportunities and challenges do these perceptions
present to the design, content, and teaching of undergraduate courses in archaeology?
Methods and Data
This study focuses on a cohort of undergraduate university students, specifically University of British Columbia (UBC) students enrolled in “Introduction to Anthropological Archaeology,” a first-year, one-semester course with no prerequisite,
designed to introduce students to archaeological practice and
world prehistory. A questionnaire similar to that used by
Pokotylo and Guppy (1999) was distributed to students on the
first day of class to sample opinion prior to any exposure to the
course material. This survey was administered to 10 classes
between 1999 and 2004, yielding a sample of 789 respondents.
The age of respondents ranged 16–75, but 93.7 percent (n = 718)
were 25 years old or younger. The following analysis focuses on
this 25-and-under group, which has a mean age of 20 years and
58.0 percent female respondents.
14
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
The survey investigated how knowledgeable the public is about
the archaeological record, their level of interest in archaeology,
the relevance and value the public gives to archaeological activity, levels of public awareness and support of archaeological conservation, and opinions on claims by Aboriginal groups (“First
Nations” in Canada) to exercise more control over their own cultural heritage. Select variables from each of these areas are discussed here and compared to data from a survey of the general
public in British Columbia (Pokotylo and Guppy 1999).
Analysis
Knowledge of Archaeology
When asked to state what they think of when they hear the word
“archaeology,” relatively few students (5.8 vs. 5.6 percent of the
public) had no opinion, while 0.6 percent (vs. 2.3 percent of the
public) were vague, cynical, or stated they didn’t care. Twelve
opinion categories were identified in the remaining responses
and grouped into five major perspectives on the nature and
scope of contemporary archaeology (Table 1).
Group I includes references to Indiana Jones, or a romantic perspective of archaeology. The proportion of students with a
romantic perspective of archaeology is small, but three times
greater (8.1 vs. 2.5 percent) than the level found among the general public. The majority (63.2 percent) of responses are in
Group II—accurate perspectives about archaeological research
(e.g., excavation, study of the past, artifacts, sites). Another 5.4
percent of students present a reasonable perspective of archaeology (Group III), referring to past cultures, antiquity, history,
heritage, or science and research. While the proportion of “accurate” and “reasonable” student responses is 68.6 percent—
showing a strong level of general understanding of
archaeology—this is lower than the general public level (81.7
percent). This trend is also evident in the “earth science” perspective (Group IV), where 23.2 percent of students (vs. 15.4
percent of the public) associate or link archaeology with
palaeontology. Finally, a small number of responses in both
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Table 1. Responses to “What do you think of when you hear the word “archaeology”?
UBC students
% of respondents
n
BC General public
% of respondents
Group
Image category
n
I
Romantic perspective
Romantic, treasure
Indiana Jones
53
13
41
8.1
1.9
6.5
23
11
12
2.5
1.3
1.4
II
Accurate perspective
Excavation
Study the past, ancient society, civilizations
Study the past through arch record, methods
Artifacts, ruins, sites
423
191
154
44
34
63.2
28.6
23.0
6.6
5.1
589
149
176
184
80
66.3
16.8
19.8
20.7
9.0
III
Reasonable perspective
Past cultures
Antiquity, heritage, history
Science, research
36
13
23
0
5.4
1.9
3.4
0.0
136
31
93
12
15.4
3.5
10.5
1.4
IV
Earth science perspective
Paleontology
Paleontology & archaeology
155
59
96
23.2
8.8
14.3
137
48
89
15.4
5.4
10.0
V
Aboriginal perspective
First Nations
1
1
0.2
0.2
2
2
0.2
0.2
627
100.0
887
100.0
Total
samples associate archaeology specifically with Aboriginal people (Group V). Relative to the general public, university students
are significantly different (x2 = 71.3, df = 3, n = 1553, p <.001) in
their knowledge about archaeology, with a lower incidence of
accurate and reasonable perspectives, and a higher occurrence
of a romantic or earth science perspectives.
This pattern is slightly ameliorated by student responses to the
question, “When do you think human beings first arrived in
British Columbia?” While fewer students (8.2 percent) than the
general public (16.0 percent) indicated no knowledge of human
antiquity, the level of (mis)understanding of the archaeological
antiquity of the province is similar in both groups. Students’
antiquity estimates ranged from 10 (hopefully, a misinterpretation of the question) to six billion years ago, with a median of
8,000 years (vs. 3,500 for the general public). Nearly two of every
10 student responses (19.3 percent) are within an “acceptable”
10,000–12,000 B.P. range. However, one of 10 students (10.8
percent) indicated that people have been in the province 500
years or less. Although the question asked for a quantitative estimate, 3.2 percent of the responses were qualitative. Of these,
only 21.6 percent are considered accurate statements (vs. 64.0
percent among the general public). When quantitative and qualitative responses are considered together, one in five (19.8 percent) students provided reasonably accurate estimates of human
antiquity in British Columbia, approximately the same proportion as among the general public (20.2 percent).
Interest in Archaeology
When asked, “How interested are you in archaeology?,” a significantly higher (Mann-Whitney U = 225745.5, p <. 001) proportion of students (64.1 percent) relative to the general public
(39.9 percent) chose one of the top two categories on a 1 (not
interested) to 5 (very interested) scale (Figure 1). While the
mean rank of both students and the public is above the scale
midpoint, indicating that opinion clusters toward the “interested” side, it is higher among students (3.7) than the general public (3.2).
Archaeology in the Contemporary World
When asked to rank relevance of archaeology on a five-point Likert scale, where 5 is “very relevant,” a higher proportion of students (66.2 percent) chose one of the top two ranks, relative to
the general public (61.3 percent) (Figure 2) The mean score of
student responses (3.8) is identical to that for the general public, with both samples showing a strong trend to relevance.
If archaeology is considered relevant in contemporary society,
what kinds of values do archaeological objects have? Students
were asked to select any number of seven value categories. The
overall rank order among students is similar to the general public, but with notable differences in the level of selection within
value categories, particularly monetary and political values. Less
than 2 percent of either student (1.8 percent) or general public
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
15
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
.003) of students (93.4 percent) vs. the general public (85.9 percent) indicated that archaeological sites are resources that
should be protected. On a seven-point scale rating the importance of site protection, the students’ average score (5.42) is
nearly identical to the general public (5.45), with nearly equal
numbers in both samples (48.9 percent of students vs. 52.0 percent of public) choosing the top two values. A slightly higher
majority of students (80.7 vs. 78.5 percent for general public)
also felt there should be laws to protect archaeological sites, but
almost equal proportions of students (17.3 percent) and the general public (17.6 percent) expressed uncertainty about the need
for legislation.
Figure 1. How interested are you in archaeology?
(1.1 percent) respondents indicated that archaeological objects
have no value. Slightly higher proportions of students indicated
that archaeological objects have educational (96.9 vs. 95.0 percent for public) and scientific values (90.4 vs. 87.6 percent for
public). Lesser but still substantial numbers of students identified spiritual (74.9 vs. 75.2 percent for public) and aesthetic values (54.2 vs. 52.4 percent public). The view of monetary value of
archaeological objects is significantly more prevalent (x2 = 7.15,
df = 1, n = 1666, p = .008) among students (61.2 percent) than
the general public (54.6 percent.) Almost half (45.0 percent) of
the students thought archaeological objects have political value,
a level significantly different (x2 = 11.88, df = 1, n = 1664, p =
.001) from the general public (36.5 percent). Evidently, perception of the values of archaeological material is multidimensional, and academic values cannot be considered in isolation from
either humanistic or material ones in either group.
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Heritage
A significantly higher proportion (x2 = 8.56, df = 1, n = 1414, p =
The level of awareness of legislation to protect archaeological
resources is low in both groups. When asked if governments
currently have laws to protect archaeological sites and artifacts,
student responses were similar to those of the general public—
64.9 percent (vs. 68.2 percent of the public) were uncertain, and
31.0 percent (vs. 26.6 percent public ) stated “yes.”
This pro-conservation concern, however, does not extend to activities such as pot hunting and the purchase of archaeological artifacts. When asked, “If you found an object for sale that was collected from an archaeological site, and you really liked the item,
would you buy it?,” seven out of every 10 students (72.7 percent)
stated “yes”—a significantly different (x2 = 96.96, df = 1, n = 1527,
p < .001) response than the 47.9 percent of the general public
who indicated that they would buy an artifact. This difference is
more pronounced considering that 3.1 percent of the general
public who stated they would buy an artifact also indicated that
they would then donate it to a heritage institution.
The student sample also displays a troubling trend in attitude
toward the collection of archaeological material—only a slight
majority (51.9 percent) either disagreed or strongly disagreed
with the statement that “people who are interested in archaeology as a hobby should be allowed to collect material from
archaeological sites” (Table 2). This is significantly less (MannWhitney U = 254592.0, p <.001) than the general public, where
66.7 percent were against collecting. The mean score of 2.5 (vs.
2.3 for the public) on the five-point scale shows student opinion
is neutral towards amateur collecting.
Aboriginal Peoples and Archaeology
Figure 2. Do you think archaeology is relevant in contemporary society?
16
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Student reaction to statements on Aboriginal peoples’ stewardship of their archaeological heritage tends to the negative, where
only one of the mean scores is above the neutral midpoint of
3.0. The best-received statements concern Aboriginal control
and preservation of archaeological sites and objects (Table 3). A
mean score of 3.1 (vs. 2.9 for public) indicates near-neutral student opinion to the statement, “Aboriginal people should have
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Table 2. Responses to statements on conservation and management of archaeological heritage; and Aboriginal peoples and archaeology.
strongly disagree
Statement
Response (%)
neutral
disagree
agree
strongly agree
Student
Public
Student
Public
Student
Public
Student
Public
Student
Public
People interested in
archaeology as a hobby
should be allowed to collect
material from archaeological
sites.
Aboriginal peoples and
archaeology
10.7
20.4
43.3
46.3
30.1
19.1
15.1
15.9
0.9
2.4
Aboriginal people should
have majority control over
archaeological sites and
artifacts their ancestors
created.
Aboriginal people should be
responsible for preservation
and care of all objects made
by their ancestors.
Only Aboriginal people
should be allowed to visit
sacred archaeological sites.
British Columbia’s ancient
past belongs only to
Aboriginal people.
Only Aboriginal people
should control the
excavation of archaeological
sites their ancestors created.
4.3
10.0
22.3
29.4
39.4
25.2
31.8
30.4
2.2
5.0
7.3
10
37.2
29.4
33.2
25.2
18.3
30.4
4.0
5.0
21.3
23.9
56.2
54.4
17.3
14.5
4.1
5.6
1.1
1.7
14.7
28.9
42.0
41.6
26.3
13.8
14.7
10.5
2.4
5.1
12.4
21.3
50.6
45.4
27.4
19.9
8.5
10.3
1.2
3.1
Conservation - management
majority control over the archaeological sites and artifacts their
ancestors created,” although a significantly smaller proportion
(34.0 percent of students vs. 39.4 percent for public) disagree or
strongly disagree (Mann-Whitney U = 275483.5, p < .009). Nearly half of the students (44.5 vs. 49.6 percent for public) disagreed
or strongly disagreed that “Aboriginal people should be responsible for the preservation and care of all objects made by their
ancestors,” and the mean response score of 2.8 (vs. 2.7 for public) indicates a slightly negative attitude.
The strongest negative opinions are in response to statements
concerning access to specific Aboriginal sites and rights over
archaeological heritage. The statement, “Only Aboriginal people
should be allowed to visit sacred archaeological sites since their
ancestors created these sites,” received the lowest average score
(2.1, identical to the public) of all five statements, and nearidentical proportions (77.5 vs. 78.3 percent) of students and the
general public disagreed or strongly disagreed with it (Table 3).
A significantly lower (Mann-Whitney U = 275381.5, p < .001)
number of students (58.7 vs. 70.5 percent for public) disagreed
or strongly disagreed that “British Columbia’s ancient past
belongs only to Aboriginal people,” with a mean response score
of 2.5 (vs. 2.2 for public). Student reaction to the statement,
“Only Aboriginal people should control the excavation of
archaeological sites that their ancestors created,” is significantly
more positive (Mann-Whitney U = 278982.5, p < .012) than the
general public, with a mean score of 2.4 (vs. 2.3) and a 63.0 percent (vs. 66.7 percent) disagree/strongly disagree response rate.
Although students tend to be negative to neutral with respect to
First Nations stewardship of British Columbia’s archaeological
record, they are less likely than the general public to disagree
about First Nations’ majority control, ownership, and
care/preservation of the past, and control of site excavations, but
are the same level as the public with respect to proprietary
access to sacred sites.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
17
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Discussion
Acknowledgments
These initial results show that this sample of UBC students generally mirror the opinions expressed by the British Columbia
public at large, but with some very notable differences. One
might assume that young and intelligent (enough to be admitted to a major university) people, well-immersed in today’s popular culture and well-connected via the Internet in the global
community, would be more “archaeology friendly”—that is, possessing a higher level of interest in the past and more concern
about archaeological conservation as part of larger environment
issues.
This research was funded by a University of British Columbia
Humanities and Social Sciences grant. Emily Wilkerson assisted in the data compilation and analysis. Neil Guppy offered useful comments in the preparation of the paper. An earlier version
of this paper was presented in the session “What are we to make
of the popular appeal of archaeology in the media and popular
culture?” at the 11th Annual Meeting of the European Archaeological Association in Cork, Ireland, in September, 2005.
Comparisons between the university students and the general
public confound at least two factors, age and education, but
given the sample sizes involved, it is not possible to partition out
the influence of each separately. Relative to the general public,
these students are much more interested in archaeology and
slightly more likely to consider it relevant in contemporary society. However, the students have a less accurate idea of what
archaeology is and are three times more likely then the general
public to hold a romantic perspective of the discipline—Indiana
Jones (and/or Laura Croft) is alive and well in the minds of nearly one of every 10 students surveyed! Although students are
more supportive of the general need to protect archaeological
sites through laws, they are more likely to assign monetary
value to archaeological objects. A more disturbing fact to archaeologists is the higher incidence of students (relative to the general public) who would knowingly purchase an archaeological
antiquity, or who consider that amateur collecting of artifacts
from sites is okay, despite their general concern about site
preservation.
Herscher, E., and F. P. McManamon
1995 Public Education and Outreach: The Obligation to Educate. In
Ethics in American Archaeology: Challenges for the 1990s, edited by M. J. Lynott and A. Wylie, pp. 42–44. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, DC.
Little, B. J. (editor)
2000 Public Benefits of Archaeology. University Press of Florida,
Gainesville.
Pokotylo, D.
2002 Public Opinion and Canadian Archaeological Heritage: A
National Perspective. Canadian Journal of Archaeology
26:88–129.
Pokotylo, D., and N. Guppy
1999 Public Opinion and Archaeological Heritage: Views from Outside the Profession. American Antiquity 64:400–416.
Pokotylo, D., and A. Mason
1991 Public Attitudes towards Archaeological Resources and their
Management. In Protecting the Past, edited by G. S. Smith and
J. E. Ehrenhard, pp. 9–18. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Ramos, M., and D. Duganne
2000 Exploring Public Perceptions and Attitudes about Archaeology. Harris Interactive Inc., Rochester. World Wide Web:
http://www.saa.org/Pubedu/nrptdraft4.pdf.
Smardz, K., and S. Smith (editors)
2000 The Archaeology Education Handbook: Sharing the Past with
Kids. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California.
Obviously, these student perceptions present challenges to the
design, content, and teaching of undergraduate courses in
archaeology. While introductory courses can increase understanding of human antiquity and what the archaeological record
is, these data show that ethical issues such as the antiquities market and the relationship between archaeologists and indigenous
peoples also need to be directly addressed at the introductory
level. Can we directly and successfully address these challenges in
a single course? In the future, we plan to conduct both entrance
and exit surveys to determine how much impact an introductory
university course has on these opinions, given the outside influences that have formed the opinions presented here.
Finally, one must ask the hard question: from what kinds of
information, and where, did these students initially develop
these perspectives? If archaeology does abound in popular culture as well as on the Internet, the very group that we hope will
support future heritage preservation are getting entertained, but
not necessarily enlightened and educated, by its content and
message.
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The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
References Cited
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
WHEN FANCY GETS THE UPPER
HAND OF FACT
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND
POPULAR CULTURE IN THE AMERICAN WEST
Kelly J. Dixon
Kelly J. Dixon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology of the University of Montana in Missoula.
A
rchaeologists are systematic seekers and finders of knowledge that maintains mass public appeal,
which means they have an ethical responsibility to be conscientious purveyors of that information to ensure that lay audiences keep up with and remain critical of archaeological advances,
especially given the accessibility of pseudo-archaeology. Given popular culture’s penchant for archaeological themes, it is essential that archaeologists share sound and clearly presented research with the lay
public to provide the latter with “well-founded information from ... empirical data as a brake against
their own and the archaeologist’s political zeal” (South 1997:55).
Popular culture includes the plentiful forms of cultural communication that have burgeoned since the
beginning of the early twentieth century, such as newspapers, dime novels, comics, radio, movies, and
television. While archaeology has surfaced in many segments of late twentieth- and early twenty-firstcentury popular culture (e.g., Holtorf 2005), Sabloff (1998:869–870) reminds fellow archaeologists of the
ways in which empirical archaeological investigations have “excited public interest” since the nineteenth
century and calls attention to a communications gap that grew between the public and professionals
when academic archaeology developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While making an argument to rebridge that gap, Sabloff emphasizes how popular writing should be part of an
archaeologist’s academic obligation, especially given the attractiveness of pseudoscientific approaches
(Sabloff 1998:872–873). By doing so, archaeologists exercise their professional responsibility to present
the relevance of their work and challenge widespread fictionalizations of the topics associated with their
assorted areas of expertise.
In this case, the American West’s historic period is the sample area of expertise. Archaeology in this
area navigates popular culture’s dual fascinations with the “Wild West” and archaeology. Newspaper
articles, advertisements, and dime novels represent major forms of popular culture that conveyed news
and stories about events in the American West to audiences within and far removed from that region
(e.g., Brown 1997; California Star 1847a; James 1998a:143–166 New York Herald 1848). If one were to
read numerous dime novels, as did many people during the late nineteenth century, then the “the overriding impression would be of a West where major and minor disputes were resolved violently, and the
moral order was momentarily stabilized only by the superior strength and intelligence of a handsome,
well-built hero” (Brown 1997, as cited in Vanasco 1997).
As a result, these media outlets transmitted this region’s notorious tales to global audiences. Exaggerations emerged almost immediately. For example, when the Donner Party story became known, the
media spread graphic and embellished descriptions about survival cannibalism associated with this
wagon train that became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Range of northern California (e.g., California
Star 1847b). In another example, this one from a mining boomtown in Nevada, Mark Twain admitted
that while he worked there in the early 1860s, he “let fancy get the upper hand of fact too often when
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
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THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
there was a dearth of news” (Twain 1985:112); Twain worked as an editor for the Territorial Enterprise, a
Virginia City, Nevada newspaper. In the same confession, Twain expressed how his glee soared on a
slow news day when a desperado killed a man in a Virginia City saloon. These are just a few examples
of the ways newspapers and fiction writers sensationalized a wilder West than the one of reality, which
they then disseminated to nineteenth-century media audiences. Their tales carried over into the twentieth century and were perpetuated not only by dime novels, but also by Hollywood and the Western film
genre, providing mass audiences with a “powerfully imagined American West” (White 1993; see also
West 1979: xi, xii, 143).
Because the human brain has the ability to intuitively create an entire reality from a few images, popular culture’s visual presentations of saloons, cowboys, Indians, gunfighters, and other icons of the
American West easily conjure images of fiction rather than fact. While Western history is much more
complex than the artistic portrayals noted above, it is worth noting that Hollywood completed the work
of entertaining, amplifying public interest in historic sites in the region. Tourists from around the world
visit refurbished ghost towns and historic sites associated with Western lore to experience the authentic
places where famous and notorious events occurred. The fact that those settings contain artifacts and
other archaeological traces allows tangible contact with and physical evidence of the infamous events
that captured the public’s attention in the first place. This makes for a powerful gateway to present
archaeological findings to a public eager to learn about the facts behind the entertaining fiction. Historical archaeology in this region is inevitably connected with the lure of fanciful accounts associated with
the “wild” West, an observation made by historical archaeologists who investigated sites associated with
subjects commonly appreciated by popular culture, including Pony Express stations, the Donner Party,
mining camps, Chinatowns, saloons, and brothels (e.g., Costello 2000; Dixon 2005; Hardesty 1997,
1998; Meyer et al. 2005; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2001; Spude 2005; Wegars 2001).
The Boston Saloon Project
The medium and precedent of public archaeology among the ruins of saloons in Virginia City, Nevada
conveys research beyond scholarly bounds (Dixon 2005; Hardesty et al. 1996). Archaeological investigations at one of these saloon sites, the Boston Saloon, will be briefly discussed as this paper’s case study
of the blending of two topics that captivate a broad spectrum of lay audiences: the legendary drinking
house of the American West and the exciting field of archaeology. The Boston Saloon was an AfricanAmerican drinking house that operated between 1866 and 1875 (Dixon 2002:16, 2005:36; see also Dixon
2006b). Research at the Boston Saloon site exposed one of several accounts of the American West,
encouraging respect for the diverse cultures that created the recent cultural heritage of that region, paralleling the mission of the new Western historians (e.g., Chan et al. 1994; James 1998a; James and Raymond 1998; Murphy 1997). Given the persistence of racism in the modern world, such research helps
combat this issue by highlighting the American West’s complex, united history.
The Boston Saloon’s owner, William A. G. Brown, was a person of color who was born in Massachusetts. He arrived in Virginia City during the early 1860s and was noted as a “bootblack,” a street shoe
polisher, in a directory of the Nevada Territory (Kelly 1863). Within a few years, Brown opened a saloon
that operated from the 1860s to early 1870s. His saloon’s existence and affiliation with people of African
ancestry are among the chronicles of African-American heritage in the mining West, a story that is not
commonly recognized in that region in general, with the exception of the Buffalo Soldiers and black
cowboys (Taylor 1998:19). Historical sources described the Boston Saloon as “the popular resort of
many of the colored population,” and African-American writers lamented the loss of “a place of recreation of our own” in Virginia City after the Boston Saloon closed (Pacific Appeal 1875; Rusco 1975:56).
Excavations at the Boston Saloon turned up materials such as bottles, glassware, tobacco pipes, and faunal remains (Figure 1). Generally speaking, such objects were not at all unlike artifacts recovered during
archaeological research at three other contemporaneous Virginia City saloons, including a Germanowned opera house saloon and two Irish-owned establishments. At a basic, interpretive level, these
items signify the types of food and beverages served, as well as the interior atmosphere of this establish-
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THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
ment. Upon closer inspection, however, it
became clear that each saloon maintained both
subtle and overt material distinctions. For
example, when the Boston Saloon collection
was compared with the collections from these
other establishments, it became clear that it
sported a rather upscale atmosphere, with elegant glassware (Figure 2), high-quality faunal
remains, fancy women’s clothing accoutrements, and innovative gas lights (Figure 3)
(Dixon 2005:59–62; 87–95; 124–132; see also
Dixon 2006a, 2006b). While some visitors to
Western saloons indicate a stale, fume-filled,
dimly-lit atmosphere (West 1979:42), the
remains from the Boston Saloon suggest that
someone developed a fashionable and wellilluminated setting. Ironically, a description of
Brown’s saloon uses rather negative terms,
depicting it as “a dead-fall” (Hoff 1938:52). This
was in reference to the first version of Brown’s
Figure 1: Artifacts recovered from the Boston Saloon included objects such as those shown here, with
saloon; by 1866, Brown moved his establishceramic serving and storage vessels, glass beverage bottles, crystal stemware, tobacco pipes, and faunal
ment to a new location, the bustling intersecremains. Courtesy, Ronald M. James, photographer.
tion of D Street and Union Street, where the
archaeological excavations indicate it was anything but a dead-fall (Dixon 2005:158–164).
The Boston Saloon’s rich archaeological record demonstrates how the recent past can be linked
with social issues, such as the ways in which the elegant archaeological remains combat racist
assumptions about the material components of African-American saloons elsewhere from the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Duis 1983:160). Even visitors to the Boston Saloon site
indicated that the sophisticated atmosphere being excavated challenged their pop-culture-inspired,
stereotypical assumptions about saloons in general. Those individuals frequently expressed their
surprise about the existence of archaeological remains of an African-American saloon and about
the fact that the artifacts signaled a finely furnished establishment, especially given its historical
context of America’s post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
The notion of a relatively refined saloon also contradicts general stereotypes associated with popular saloon imagery, namely seedy atmospheres, outlaws, loose women, and brawls. Violence and
vice did, on occasion, occur in saloons (James 1998a:154; West 1979). Nevertheless, they were, for
the most part, public places where people went to relax and socialize as opposed to places where
people sought certain death. Yet the latter has worked its way into a common association between
saloons and violence. Hollywood portrayals and popular forms of Western historical literature
tend to present saloons and mining boomtowns as sordid places populated primarily by European
Americans, with Chinese and Native Americans on the margins. African Americans rarely enter
this story. But they were there, and the Boston Saloon is one instance that provides an opportunity
to learn more about their experiences in the American West.
New immigrants to the West sought to soften the anxiety and hostility associated with the transition to a new life in this region and actively expressed their identity through various leisure venues. Leisure studies call attention to the fact that people express their cultural, class-based, gender- Figure 2: Glass serving ware from the
Boston Saloon included elegant crystal
based identity during their free time, especially when living in a prejudicial social and economic
context (Duis 1983; Murphy 1997; West 1979). As leisure institutions, saloons represented physical stemware, such as the goblet base and
stem fragment shown here. Courtesy,
places where people of similar backgrounds could socialize and relax. Saloons were places where
Ronald M. James, photographer.
people found refuge as an array of groups came into contact with each other in cosmopolitan
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
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THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Western boomtown settings, encouraging segregation and pluralism
instead of a society of “indiscriminate social mixing” (West 1979:91).
The individual saloon niches, then, reflected the diverse social, cultural,
economic, and ethnic milieu of the West’s boomtowns. Saloons provide
an example of how a shared heritage of many groups played itself out in
the West and fueled cultural diversity. The archaeology of Virginia City
saloons recovered thousands of artifacts and ecofacts that comprise the
material vestiges of that diversity.
Changing Public Attitudes
The iconic appeal of saloons, together with the tangible remains of those
places, provides a gateway for presenting historical and archaeological
interpretations to the lay public, that is, people who are neither participating in nor influenced by the work of the new Western historians and
historical archaeologists in the American West. It is assumed that such
members of the public would not, generally, be inspired to consider the
multicultural dimensions of West if they continued to get their history
from the popular, fictitious accounts of that region.
While the public was informed about and invited to the Boston Saloon
excavation, outreach continues even though the field and laboratory
work are complete. A traveling exhibit, Havens in a Heartless World, featuring materials recovered during historical archaeological investigations
of boomtown saloons, recently premiered at the Nevada State Museum
in Carson City (Figure 4). Also, a historical marker dedicated to the
Boston Saloon currently hangs on C Street, Virginia City’s main thoroughfare, where it can be seen by anyone sauntering along the boardwalk (Nevada State Historic Preservation Office 2005). Finally, the book
Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City (Dixon 2005),
intends to appeal to scholars and the lay public.
Non-archaeologists ended up making their own significant contributions
to the Boston Saloon project. For example, in addition to visiting and
Figure 3: Patent information recovered from a copper-alloy fragment
filming the excavation, the Reno-Sparks Chapter of the National Associaindicated that this gas light fixture was the style used in the Boston
tion for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) incorporated the
Saloon. The illustration is from the U.S. Patent Records, Patent No.
Boston Saloon project in Black History Month and Juneteenth celebra134,281, December 24, 1872. Courtesy, Getchell Library,
tions and featured the project on a calendar commemorating Black hisUniversity of Nevada, Reno.
tory in Nevada (Miller 2006). In another example, one member of the
public who spent time volunteering on the Boston Saloon came across
someone peddling a one-of-a-kind historic photo of William Brown (Dornan 2006). This individual, realizing the significance of the photo after spending time volunteering on the Boston Saloon investigation,
acquired it and immediately shared it with those involved with that project. In each of these examples,
members of the public were inspired to continue collaboration with professionals long after the excavation pits had been backfilled.
Once archaeologists learn something about the human past, they are responsible for presenting their
research. In this case, the Boston Saloon story underscored a shared heritage and had the potential to
highlight a sense of mutual respect for the diverse cultures comprising the history and current character of the western United States (Asante 1998:xi). Given this, the project archaeologists and historians
realized that it was essential to disseminate the findings from this project to various audiences, and this
occurred at both national and international levels (e.g., Donaldson 2000; James and Escobar 2004; McIlhenny Company 2002). They were able to share knowledge of the Boston Saloon with lay audiences by
tapping into the existing, dual fascinations with archaeology and popular culture’s iconic “Wild West.”
22
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Figure 4: One of several displays in the Havens in a Heartless World exhibit, dedicated to presenting the archaeological discoveries from Virginia City, Nevada saloons during the Spring of 2006. Courtesy, Nevada State Museum, Jeanette McGregor,
photographer.
The repercussion of this two-fold appeal provided lessons in the complexities of American western history and that history’s influence on our modern world—with figurative spoonfuls of sugar. Even the
non-Archaeology magazine readers walked away with a revised view of the West.
Acknowledgments
Cornelius Holtorf is recognized for arranging the publication of this group of papers and collective
thanks goes to both Cornelius Holtorf and George Smith for organizing the symposium where this
paper first appeared at the European Association of Archaeologists Conference in Cork, Ireland, 2005.
Additional gratitude is extended to the SAA editorial staff and reviewers, and to World Archaeology for
publishing another version of this paper (Dixon 2006c).
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James, R. M., and J. S. Escobar
2004 L’Archéologie d’un Saloon. Archéologia 407:46–55.
James, R. M., and C. E. Raymond (editors)
1998 Comstock Women: The Making of a Mining Community. University of Nevada Press, Reno.
Kelly, J. W.
1863 Second Directory of the Nevada Territory. Valentine and Company, Virginia City, Nevada.
McIlhenny Company
2002 Oldest Known Tabasco(r) Bottle Type Discovered at Nevada Archaeological Site. Electronic document,
http://www.tabasco.com/info_booth/news/old_tabasco_bottle_exc.cfm, accessed August 21, 2006.
Meyer, M. D., E. S. Gibson, and J. G. Costello
2005 City of Angels, City of Sin: Archaeology in the Los Angeles Red Light District ca. 1900. Historical Archaeology 39(1):107–125.
Miller, G.
2006 New Calendar Tells Stories of Prominent Black Personalities in Northern Nevada History. Reno GazetteJournal, 20 February 2006.
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THE POPULAR APPEAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Murphy, M. M.
1997 Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914–1941. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Nevada State Historic Preservation Office
2005 African Americans and the Boston Saloon: Nevada Historical Marker 266. Electronic document,
http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/shpo/markers/mark_266.htm, accessed August 21, 2006.
New York Herald [New York]
1848 [Article describing and announcing the California Gold Rush] 19 August 1848. New York.
Pacific Appeal [San Francisco]
1875 [Report on the Virginia City fire, written for the Pacific Appeal by agent M. Howard in Virginia City, Nevada.] 26 October, 1875. San Francisco.
Praetzellis, A., and M. Praetzellis
2001 Mangling Symbols of Gentility in the “Wild West.” American Anthropologist 103(3):645–654.
Rusco, E.
1975 “Good Times Coming?” Black Nevadans in the Nineteenth Century. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.
Sabloff, J.
1998 Communication and the Future of American Archaeology. American Anthropologist 100(4):869–875.
South, S.
1997 Generalized Versus Literal Interpretation. In Presenting Archaeology to the Public, edited by J. Jameson, Jr.,
pp. 54–62. Altamira Press. Walnut Creek, CA.
Spude, C. H.
2005 Brothels and Saloons: An Archaeology of Gender in the American West. Historical Archaeology 39(1):89–106.
Taylor, Q.
1998 In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528–1990. W. W. Norton and Company, New York.
Territorial Enterprise [Virginia City, Nevada]
1877 [Article describing festivities associated with Virginia City’s Prince Hall Masons]. 19 September 1877. Virginia City, Nevada.
Twain, M.
1985 [1872] Mark Twain in Virginia City, Nevada. Nevada Publications, Las Vegas.
Vanasco, J.
1997 Dime Westerns. The University of Chicago Chronicle, 17 April 1997. Electronic document,
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/970417/westerns.shtml, accessed August 21, 2006.
Wegars, P. (editor)
1993 Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese. Baywood Publishing Company, Amityville,
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West, E.
1979 The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
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1993 It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West. University of Oklahoma Press,
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HOLTORF, from page 10 <
Moore, L.
2006 Going Public: Customization and American Archaeology. The SAA Archaeological Record 6(3):16–19.
Pine, J., II, and J. Gilmore
1999 The Experience Economy. Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
Schulze, G.
1993 Die Erlebnis-Gesellschaft. Kultursoziologie der Gegenwart. 3rd ed. Campus, New York.
Tuan, Yi-Fu
1998 Escapism. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Wallace, M.
1985 Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disney World. Radical History Review 32:33–57.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
25
STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
SO YOU’RE IN...NOW WHAT?
STEPS TO TAKE AFTER BEING ADMITTED TO A GRADUATE PROGRAM
Elizabeth Bollwerk
Elizabeth Bollwerk is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia.
C
ongratulations, you have been accepted to graduate
school! One of the most difficult parts of the process is
over. You now have the opportunity to continue your
studies at the graduate level. Nonetheless, some of your most
important decisions still remain. If you have been accepted to
more than one program, which one do you choose? If you have
not been accepted by your top choice, is it beneficial to reapply
the following year, or proceed with another program? Once you
have made your choice, what steps should you take to ensure
you have a successful graduate career?
• Aside from the posted curriculum, are there additional, littlepublicized requirements, such as completing foreign language exams?
• What is the housing situation: graduate dorms or off-campus
housing? Is there a mandatory meal plan if you live in the
dorms?
• Should I bring my car or is there adequate public transportation? Is parking available on campus?
• Are there additional fees charged by the university, such as
activity fees?
• What is the social life in the department and the local community like?
Choosing Between Multiple Programs
Faculty
Clearly, there are a number of factors to consider when deciding
among multiple graduate programs: faculty, the overall content
and nature of the program, funding, and how the above relate to
your career goals. There are several avenues you can pursue that
will provide you with information to make this decision.
School Visits
Although costly, there is no better way to get a sense of the faculty, students, and departments you are interested in than by
visiting. Many programs have weekends specifically set aside for
incoming graduate students to visit and meet faculty and current graduate students. If this is an option, take advantage of it.
Even if schools do not have specific weekends set aside for
prospective students, programs generally will subsidize your
visit in one way or another. If nothing else, they will find you a
place to stay, often with a current graduate student. The visit
provides important opportunities for gauging how well the
department fits your needs and gives you a sense of how satisfied graduate students are with the departmental atmosphere
and the program. Some possible questions to direct toward current students are:
• What are the department’s dynamics? Is there tension between
different professors?
26
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Whether you have been accepted into a M.A. or Ph.D. program,
you will be drawing on the knowledge and expertise of the students and faculty in your graduate program for the rest of your
career. Consequently, it is of paramount importance to choose
the program and department that will work best for you. Generally, students select a program of study to work with a particular faculty member; however, students ultimately work with
several people throughout their graduate training. Unforeseen
obstacles may make it difficult or impossible to have a particular person as an advisor or chair. In any case, a thesis or dissertation requires three readers, at least two being from the student’s department. Therefore, it is critical to make your decision
based on broader criteria. By the same token, choosing a program that has multiple faculty members with whom you envision yourself working may be important, especially if you enter
a graduate program with only a general idea of your research
goals.
Department Size
Departments initially may admit a large group of graduate students, recognizing that some will not complete the program.
Other programs allow few incoming students, hoping that they
all will complete their degree. As a result, departments can vary
in size from 20 graduate students to a couple hundred. It is
SAA COMMITTEES
STUDENT
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
important to remember that you must find the department size
you think will work best for you. If you are a self-motivated
worker who does not necessarily need hands-on mentoring, a
larger department may be an appropriate choice. Additionally, it
is worthwhile to consider whether having a broader range of
people to interact with will benefit you both academically and
socially. If, however, you prefer steady guidance and frequent
personal interaction with advisors, you may prefer a smaller
department. By talking with current graduate students, when
you visit or via email, you can gauge whether a department has
the appropriate student-to-faculty ratio. Current students are a
vital resource enabling you to get a sense of how the department
works. If you don’t know any graduate students in a particular
program, write to your faculty contact or the director of graduate studies, asking for students’ names and emails.
Funding Packages
While funding is an obvious consideration, it also is one whose
impact is not always easy to measure. There are a number of
factors to consider regarding funding packages, which vary
widely among schools. For instance, what is the duration of the
funding? Are there other opportunities for assistance from outside funding sources? (For more information about ways to procure outside funding see Lippiello’s article in The SAA Archaeological Record, 2006, 6[5]:21–23, 40.) When inquiring about funding, ask about the possibility of summer travel, foreign language or other specialized training, and dissertation write-up
support, which are often not included in initial packages but
may be customary in many departments.
If funding proves to be an insurmountable issue, it may be prudent to wait a year and work for an employer like a cultural
resource management firm or a lab. Conversely, money should
never be the deciding factor. The difference of a few thousand
dollars per year may not be as important as attending the school
whose department is the best fit for you in other ways.
Location, Location, Location
Your overall quality of life can play a significant role in your
graduate career, especially given the possibility that you may
stay in one place for four years or more. If you are choosing
between two similar programs, evaluating the pros and cons of
the location and the funding package can be helpful. When
funding packages are roughly the same from two different programs in which you have substantial interest, it can be useful to
compare the average cost of living in their respective locations.
For example, a $15,000/year fellowship or assistantship will go
much further in a town such as Charlottesville, Virginia than it
will in Boston, Massachusetts. If you are fortunate enough to
get a funding package you can live on without having to work an
additional part-time job or take out loans, you have the opportunity to finish your degree more quickly. Moreover, it is important to consider the opportunities available for your partner or
children.
In addition to advice garnered from current graduate students,
online resources provided by colleges and universities assist in
this process, serving as a guide to the city and surrounding area.
One example is Yale University’s graduate website, which
includes a database that allows students to search for apartments or houses (http://www-iisp1.its.yale.edu/offcampus/off
campus_housing_search.asp). Many programs also have online
graduate guides that list resources and opportunities for getting
involved in other aspects of student life and the larger community. The University of Virginia guide (http://www.virginia.edu/
virginia/gradguide/) and the University of Michigan guide
(http://www.rackham.umich.edu/newcurr.html) are particularly good examples.
Once You Have Chosen a Program
Once you have chosen your program, it is never too early to
become acquainted with the community that will become an
integral part of your life. Since most students choose programs
on the basis of faculty members with whom they wish to study,
it is advantageous to connect with these people as soon as possible. Many faculty members use the summer to conduct their
research by running field schools or lab programs. Often money
is written into grants for research or teaching assistants.
Although these positions are often filled by current graduate
students, some programs leave spots open for incoming students. More likely, incoming graduates may be able to participate as volunteers. This opportunity is beneficial especially for
students planning to work on international projects as it allows
the student to gather more experience in their region of interest
and form relationships with faculty members and other students working in similar fields.
Obviously, not everyone entering graduate school has a concrete
idea of the area or people with which they want to work. This
may be particularly true for incoming students who have
received degrees in other disciplines and do not necessarily have
a firm background in archaeology or anthropology. If this is the
case, it may be more pertinent to become immersed in the theoretical literature as early as possible. To this end, if you are in
contact with a member of the faculty in your program, request
recommendations of books that may be used in your initial
coursework. Another alternative is to determine which faculty
members will teach your classes in the fall and contact them
directly to ask for this information. You also can search campus
bookstore websites for information regarding booklists for
classes. Once again, current graduate students are a good
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
27
STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
New from Thames & Hudson
source for reading lists. An early immersion strategy is a useful
exercise for those who have a B.A. degree in anthropology/
archaeology and are returning to school after being in the field
or the workforce.
by Philip Matyszak
A time-traveler’s guide to sightseeing and
survival in the city of the Caesars in AD 200
144 pages / 43 illus. / $22.95
Most importantly, as a graduate student it is important to learn
how to budget time effectively. One of my professors at the University of Virginia, Peter Metcalf, advises using three lists,
labeled “A,” “B,” and “C.” The “A” list is for daily tasks, reading
for classes, T.A. duties, etc. The “B” list is for tasks that must be
completed in upcoming weeks or months, such as a paper for a
class or conference, a recommendation for a student, or a grant
proposal or article. Finally, the “C” list is for long-term projects,
such as a dissertation, thesis, or book. One great challenge of
graduate school is learning to balance the lists. With classes,
teaching, and other projects vying for your attention, it is easy to
lose sight of the items on the “C” list, even though they often are
vital to your professional development and attaining your career
aspirations. Keeping lists is only one method of remaining cognizant of all the tasks you must accomplish. Find an arrangement that allows you to accomplish your ultimate goal—
dissertation or thesis completion.
Finally, as a graduate student, it is easy to become disconnected
from the community. While graduate school is a full-time
endeavor and should be the first priority, it is important to retain
a sense of balance. Not all lessons are learned in the classroom.
Interacting with individuals outside the academic community
improves networking skills, ultimately making more wellrounded scholars.
by Chris Scarre
An authoritative overview of the wide
range of British and Irish Neolithic
monuments, from massive stone circles
to chambered tombs to henges
160 pages / 175 illus. / $19.95 paper
Wherever books are sold
thamesandhudsonusa.com
28
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Selecting the correct graduate program is only the first step in a
long process that involves many challenging decisions. Remember the central focus of your efforts—graduation. The success or
failure of a graduate career primarily rests with you. Utilize all
possible resources available to make your decision, especially
current graduate students and faculty. Take initiative but ask for
help when you need it. Again, congratulations and best of luck
with your graduate career!
ARTICLE
UPDATE ON ACTIVITIES OF THE ADVISORY
COUNCIL ON HISTORIC PRESERVATION’S
ARCHAEOLOGY TASK FORCE
Daniel G. Roberts
Daniel G. Roberts is President of John Milner Associates, Inc., a private firm specializing in cultural resources and
historic preservation consulting headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
S
ince last reported (The SAA Archaeological Record
6[2]:12–13), the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation’s (ACHP) Archaeology Task Force (ATF) has been
moving forward on its three primary initiatives: revisiting the
ACHP’s existing (1988) Policy Statement Regarding Treatment
of Human Remains and Grave Goods, crafting archaeological
guidance documents for Section 106 practitioners and participants, and identifying strategies for maximizing the potential
for archaeological resources under the Section 106 process to
enhance heritage tourism and public education. During this
period, the ATF, expertly chaired by Julia King, has been focusing its efforts on crafting a new policy statement on human
remains to replace the existing 1988 policy. My role with the
ATF, along with Kay Simpson, is to serve as a nonvoting
resource and participant representing the Society for American
Archaeology (SAA), the Society for Historical Archaeology
(SHA), the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA), and
the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA), and to
report on the ATF’s activities to those organizations.
Human Remains Initiative
In developing a new policy statement on human remains, the
ATF was guided by several overarching tenets: (1) the policy
would pertain to burial sites, human remains, and funerary
objects of all peoples while being mindful of the unique legal
standing held by American Indian tribal governments and
Native Hawaiian organizations due to provisions of the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
and tribal sovereignty; (2) it would apply only to federal undertakings subject to review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act; and (3) it would emphasize the consultation process codified by Section 106.
During the ATF’s deliberations on this topic, informational
exchange sessions were held at the SAA, SHA, and ACRA annual meetings, and regional consultation meetings on a
government-to-government basis were held in various venues
around the country with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian
organizations. An initial “notice of intent” was published in the
Federal Register in September 2005, and a draft statement was
published for public comment in the Federal Register in March
2006. In all, over 250 letters of comment has been received to
this point, including responses from professional archaeological organizations, tribal governments, Native Hawaiian groups,
federal and other agencies, and individual citizens. All comments were considered by ATF, and a revised policy draft was
sent in December 2006 to all parties who commented previously. Fifteen letters of comment were received on this draft,
including comments from SAA, RPA, and ACRA. The ATF then
took into account all new comments and crafted a group consensus document for consideration by the full ACHP in January
2007.
On February 23, 2007, the ACHP unanimously adopted a new
Policy Statement Regarding Treatment of Burial Sites, Human
Remains, and Funerary Objects. The text of the policy consists
of eight principles, together with explanatory subtext and definitions. Following are the preamble and the eight principles.
The complete text of the policy statement can be found at
http://www.achp.gov/archaeology.
ACHP Policy Statement Regarding Treatment of Burial
Sites, Human Remains, and Funerary Objects
Preamble: This policy offers leadership in resolving how to treat
burial sites, human remains, and funerary objects in a respectful and sensitive manner while acknowledging public interest
in the past. As such, this policy is designed to guide federal
agencies in making decisions about the identification and treatment of burial sites, human remains, and funerary objects
encountered in the Section 106 process, in those instances
where federal or state law does not prescribe a course of action.
This policy applies to all federal agencies with undertakings that
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
29
ARTICLE
are subject to review under Section 106 of the National Historic
Preservation Act (NHPA; 16 U.S.C. § 470f), and its implementing regulations (36 CFR Part 800). To be considered under Section 106, the burial site must be, or be a part of, a historic property, meaning that it is listed, or eligible for listing, in the
National Register of Historic Places.
The ACHP encourages federal agencies to apply this policy
throughout the Section 106 process, including during the identification of those historic properties. In order to identify historic properties, federal agencies must assess the historic significance of burial sites and apply the National Register criteria
to determine whether a property is eligible. Burial sites may
have several possible areas of significance, such as those that
relate to religious and cultural significance, as well as those that
relate to scientific significance that can provide important information about the past. This policy does not proscribe any area
of significance for burial sites and recognizes that the assessment must be completed on a case-by-case basis through consultation.
The policy is not bound by geography, ethnicity, nationality, or
religious belief, but applies to the treatment of all burial sites,
human remains, and funerary objects encountered in the Section 106 process, as the treatment and disposition of these sites,
remains, and objects are a human rights concern shared by all.
This policy also recognizes the unique legal relationship
between the federal government and tribal governments as set
forth in the Constitution of the United States, treaties, statutes,
and court decisions, and acknowledges that, frequently, the
remains encountered in Section 106 review are of significance
to Indian tribes.
Section 106 requires agencies to seek agreement with consulting parties on measures to avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse
effects to historic properties. Accordingly, and consistent with
Section 106, this policy does not recommend a specific outcome
from the consultation process. Rather, it focuses on issues and
perspectives that Federal agencies ought to consider when making their Section 106 decisions. In many cases, federal agencies
will be bound by other applicable federal, tribal, state, or local
laws that do prescribe a specific outcome, such as NAGPRA.
The Federal agency must identify and follow applicable laws and
implement any prescribed outcomes.
For undertakings on federal and tribal land that encounter
Native American or Native Hawaiian human remains and
funerary objects, NAGPRA applies. NHPA and NAGPRA are
separate and distinct laws, with separate and distinct implementing regulations and categories of parties that must be consulted. The ACHP’s publication, Consulting with Indian Tribes in
the Section 106 Process, and the National Association of Tribal
Historic Preservation Officers’ publication, Tribal Consultation:
Best Practices in Historic Preservation, provide additional guid-
30
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
ance on this matter. Compliance with one of these laws does not
mean equal compliance with the other. Implementation of this
policy and its principles does not, in any way, change, modify,
detract, or add to NAGPRA or other applicable laws.
Principles: When burial sites, human remains, or funerary
objects will be or are likely to be encountered in the course of
Section 106 review, a federal agency should adhere to the following principles:
Principle 1: Participants in the Section 106 process should treat
all burial sites, human remains and funerary objects with dignity and respect.
Principle 2: Only through consultation, which is the early and
meaningful exchange of information, can a federal agency make
an informed and defensible decision about the treatment of burial sites, human remains, and funerary objects.
Principle 3: Native Americans are descendants of original occupants of this country. Accordingly, in making decisions, federal
agencies should be informed by and utilize the special expertise
of Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations in the documentation and treatment of their ancestors.
Principle 4: Burial sites, human remains, and funerary objects
should not be knowingly disturbed unless absolutely necessary,
and only after the federal agency has consulted and fully considered avoidance of impact and whether it is feasible to preserve them in place.
Principle 5: When human remains or funerary objects must be
disinterred, they should be removed carefully, respectfully, and
in a manner developed in consultation.
Principle 6: The federal agency is ultimately responsible for
making decisions regarding avoidance of impact to or treatment
of burial sites, human remains, and funerary objects. In reaching its decisions, the federal agency must comply with applicable federal, tribal, state, or local laws.
Principle 7: Through consultation, federal agencies should
develop and implement plans for the treatment of burial sites,
human remains, and funerary objects that may be inadvertently discovered.
Principle 8: In cases where the disposition of human remains
and funerary objects is not legally prescribed, federal agencies
should proceed following a hierarchy that begins with the rights
of lineal descendants, and if none, then the descendant community, which may include Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian
organizations.
Discussion
The new policy statement differs from the 1988 version in several ways. While both versions encourage disinterment of
ARTICLE
human remains only when absolutely necessary, and then in a
respectful and dignified manner, the new policy places greater
emphasis on early and meaningful consultation and further
emphasizes that it is the lead federal agency’s responsibility to
make the decisions. Whereas the 1988 policy specified that scientific study followed by reburial was the preferred approach or
outcome, if avoidance was not possible, the new policy statement is silent on preferred outcomes. The new policy also gives
weight to the wishes of lineal descendants and descendant communities in the treatment and disposition of human remains,
and in particular calls out the importance of consultation with
Indian and Native Hawaiian tribes and organizations. Importantly, the new policy allows for the disinterment of human
remains with or without field recordation in a manner developed through consultation.
The ATF worked diligently on this difficult issue through many
long hours of sometimes spirited debate, and all members are
to be heartily congratulated for their efforts. There is much to
like about the new policy statement. It does a better job of stressing early and meaningful consultation whenever human
remains and associated funerary objects are an issue. It better
emphasizes that there is no “cookbook recipe” for addressing
the disturbance and disposition of human remains and that all
such instances are unique and should be treated on a case-bycase basis. And it correctly recognizes that human remains elicit strong emotional and spiritual responses in many people and,
as such, their disturbance and disposition should be viewed
more broadly as a human rights issue.
Like most consensus documents, however, not all provisions of
the new policy statement will necessarily be embraced by everyone. Some Indian and Native Hawaiian groups may feel that the
policy does not go far enough in taking into account their spiritual concerns or unique legal standing. Other stakeholder
groups may feel that the new policy fails to define what constitutes a “descendant community” and emphasizes Indian and
Native Hawaiian spiritual concerns over their own. Consultants,
regulators, and other practitioners may feel the document
focuses too much on process and not enough on providing practical guidance with examples of a range of acceptable outcomes.
And some in the professional community may feel that knowledge to be gained from the scientific study of human remains
will now be more difficult to achieve as an outcome of the consultation process. In short, the new policy statement is not a
perfect document for all stakeholders, nor can it ever be.
By adopting this new policy, the ACHP clearly is making a break
with the past. By avoiding declarative language regarding preferred or suggested outcomes, the ACHP is putting considerable faith in the effectiveness of the consultation process to
achieve viable results. By including specific reference to the
wishes of lineal descendants and descendant community
groups during that process, however, the ACHP also seems to
be saying that knowledge from the scientific study of human
remains is a privilege to be gained by consultation with those
individuals and groups most directly affiliated with and affected
by the treatment of ancestral remains. This is a shift in emphasis that many but not all archaeologists will embrace. In any
event, it will not escape most archaeologists that the new policy
is silent in recognizing that scientific study is sometimes an
appropriate way to identify ancestral affiliation and, in turn,
descendant communities. It will likewise not escape most
archaeologists that the new policy is also silent in providing
guidance in cases where lineal descendants or a descendant
community cannot be identified.
Section 106 Guidance Initiative
With regard to the Section 106 guidance initiative, several ATF
subcommittees have been busy circulating internal working
drafts on a number of topics, including what constitutes a reasonable and good faith effort to identify historic properties, what
is appropriate consultation, what is appropriate application of
the National Register criteria, and what are appropriate alternative mitigation strategies. The intent will be to produce a webbased document organized in question-and-answer format that
will provide guidance to Section 106 practitioners and participants on the topics noted above, as well as others still in development. The development of a draft document is currently
scheduled for completion in late Summer 2007.
Heritage Tourism Initiative
With regard to the ATF’s heritage tourism imitative, an interactive workshop was held at the SHA annual meeting on January
12, 2007 in Williamsburg, and a similar workshop is scheduled
for April 27, 2007 at the SAA annual meeting in Austin. The
Williamsburg workshop was well attended, audience participation was high, and excellent ideas were voiced. Especially beneficial in providing a context for the discussion were the comments of Joan Poor, a cultural economist from St. Mary’s College. Comprehensive minutes were taken at the workshop, and
these and similar minutes from the Austin meeting will form
the bases of the ATF’s work on this initiative in the coming
months.
All SAA, SHA, RPA, and ACRA members are encouraged to
familiarize themselves with the issues and topics of the ATF’s
charge. Questions and comments can be addressed to Dan
Roberts at [email protected] or Kay Simpson at [email protected].
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
31
ARTICLE
THE IMPACT OF MECHANICAL VEGETATION
TREATMENTS ON ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
Daniel Odess and Aaron Robertson
Daniel Odess is Curator of Archaeology at the University of Alaska Museum of the North and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks. Aaron Robertson is Archaeologist for the U.S. Army Garrison Alaska’s Donnelly Training Area and a
Research Associate at Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands.
T
he National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA)
holds that activities conducted on federal lands, or those
that require federal permits or use federal funds, must
undergo a review process to safeguard cultural resources that
are or may be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The Act includes a review process, commonly
called the “Section 106 process,” but this process is only initiated if planned activities are deemed by land managers to have
potential to harm cultural resources. Activities that are not
thought to hold potential to damage those resources are not
generally subjected to review.
One activity that has typically not been seen by land managers
as having any impact on cultural and historical resources is
what are termed “mechanical vegetation treatments.” These are
designed to “reduce fire hazards, improve the proper distribution of plant communities, increase plant diversity, control noxious weeds, and improve the quality and quantity of vegetation
for wildlife and livestock” (Zachman 2003). Such treatments go
by a variety of names including “brushing,” “shear-blading,”
“hydro-mowing,” “hydro-axing,” “roll-chopping,” and “rollerchopping.” These treatments are used in both linear transects—
such as road or powerline rights-of-way, firebreaks, and pipeline
corridors—and to control vegetation on larger parcels that may
encompass hundreds, or even thousands, of square kilometers.
Because the potential of mechanical treatments to adversely
affect cultural and historical resources has not been investigated, many land managers appear to believe them to be exempt
from review under Section 106 of NHPA. This article reports
the results of an experiment that indicates that mechanical vegetation treatments do adversely affect archaeological sites in
ways that should trigger initiation of the 106 Process.
The Experimental Design
The research design for this project is relatively simple, and the
experiment we describe could be replicated in other environmental settings or with other types of mechanical treatment. In
brief, our approach was to create an “archaeological site” using
32
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
replicated stone tools and see how mechanical treatment of vegetation impacted the site’s integrity. In this case, the experiment
took place in interior Alaska on a plot of ground already scheduled for mechanical treatment. The equipment used was a
device that can be mounted on various types of heavy earthmoving equipment—a rubber-tired front-end loader or tracked
back-hoe, for example—and used to chop or mow standing or
felled trees and brush up to 25 cm in diameter, converting them
into wood chips. It is, in essence, an enlarged and strengthened
version of a push-operated, self-mulching lawn mower that has
been mounted on a hydraulically controlled mechanical arm
capable of manipulating it in three dimensions of space. The
device used in this experiment, a hydraulic flail, was mounted
on a steel-tracked Caterpillar 315 excavator weighing approximately 16,400 kg.
A series of stone tools was replicated by Bruce Bradley for use
in the experiment. To prevent the possibility that failure to
recover experimental material would result in the inadvertent
creation of a new archaeological site, the material used was
Goldstone, a synthetic lithic material readily distinguishable
from naturally occurring stone. Goldstone has the flintknapping characteristics of good quality crypto-crystalline material. Since part of the goal of this exercise was to educate land
managers about the effects of mechanical treatments on archaeological sites, we felt we could make a more convincing case if
the objects used were readily identifiable as tools by nonarchaeologists. To this end, spear points, knives, scrapers,
unmodified flakes, and other tools were produced.
We painted artifacts with highly contrastive paint so that physical damage to the tool would be readily visible to both the
trained and untrained eye. Each artifact was then labeled with a
catalog number to facilitate pre- and post-treatment mapping.
We then created an archaeological “site” by placing 51 flakes and
formal tools on the ground surface within an area scheduled for
mechanical treatment. Such surface sites are common in many
parts of the world where sediment deposition is slow to nonexistent. The three-dimensional position of each artifact was
ARTICLE
Figure 1: The distribution of artifacts before and after mechanical treatment.
recorded in relation to a fixed datum before mechanical treatment commenced. Mapping was accomplished with the aid of a
total station.
The experiment was conducted in August, after the snow cover
had melted and the ground had thawed. The soil in the study
area consists of fine aeolian silt overlain by a layer of organic
duff. Vegetation included birch, poplar, and spruce trees typical
of well-drained soils in interior Alaska. The area for the experiment was chosen because the vegetation and soil types found
there are widespread within the region, because an ongoing
archaeological survey program had demonstrated relatively high
potential to find sites in such terrain, and because the area had
been scheduled for mechanical treatment prior to cultural
resource inventory activities. Once mechanical treatment was
completed, the tools were relocated and the “site” remapped.
The Results
Figure 1 shows the distribution of tools before and after
mechanical treatment. Mapping the distribution of material following mechanical treatment demonstrated that all flakes and
artifacts moved to some degree. The horizontal distances
involved varied from 1 to 255 cm, with an average of 18.7 cm.
Plotting the relationship between mass and movement indicates no correlation. The two most massive specimens both
moved more than twice the average distance, but three of the
least-massive specimens moved much farther. These figures do
not include the single specimen that was shattered and
destroyed. The 10 fragments recovered of that specimen moved
an average of 105 cm from the point of origin.
Five of the 51 objects deployed in this experiment were not recovered. Three of the five were originally placed in the area where
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
33
ARTICLE
Figure 2: The artifact on the left was produced in Goldstone and painted
with high-contrast paint prior to the experiment. High-contrast paint provided easy visual identification of physical damage. As seen in the image,
some objects suffered massive damage as a result of mechanical vegetation
treatment.
the Caterpillar’s steel track later traveled. They may have been
driven below the ground surface or caught up in the track, or the
action of the mechanical treatment equipment may have ejected
them beyond the area examined during our recovery efforts.
In addition to disturbing the spatial integrity of the site, mechanical vegetation treatment also damaged individual artifacts (Figure 2). Of the 46 stone tools recovered in the experiment, 10 (21.7
percent) showed physical damage. Damage took the form of one
or more flakes being removed or the specimen being snapped
into two or more pieces. One specimen was completely
destroyed, with 10 fragments recovered equaling only about 60
percent of the specimen’s original mass. Observed damage on
specimens is consistent with multiple causes, including trampling and utilization for expedient cutting. There does not
appear to be a strong correlation between artifact movement and
damage. Of the 10 specimens that exhibited damage, four moved
3 cm or less; only one moved more than 20 cm. Again, the shattered specimen is excluded from this discussion.
Discussion
The experiment reported here was not designed to assess the
potential impact of mechanical treatments on sub-surface
archaeological sites. It is worth noting, however, that several
trees were partially pulled from the ground by treatment, with
large sections of roots exposed. Such action causes root movement that displaces buried archaeological material both horizontally and vertically, and potentially mixes objects from different occupational features or time periods. This observation
suggests that, contrary to published statements from land managers asserting that “the Hydro-axe leaves behind a fine, protective mulch and causes little surface disturbance” (Zachman
2003), such equipment does adversely affect both surface and
sub-surface archaeological sites.
34
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
The second common form of mechanical treatment, rollerchopping, was not part of this experiment, so we have no direct
basis for assessing its impacts on cultural resources. However,
it is apparent from examining areas that have been rollerchopped that it impacts surface and near-surface material at
least as heavily as other forms of mechanical treatment. In
extolling the virtues of the technology, land managers concede
that there are impacts to the ground surface. Zachman (2003)
writes: “The increase of litter and the blade indentations in the
soil surface usually decrease the erosion rate after roller chopping. The roller chopper should be towed up and down slopes
so that the blade indentations will retard surface runoff and soil
erosion.” Since the roller chopper weighs 12,000–19,500 kg
(depending on the model) and uses this weight to drive its 38cm-deep by 4-m-wide blades through the slash and into the
underlying ground as it rolls along, we conclude that roller
chopping also causes damage to both surface and subsurface
archaeological sites.
Mechanical treatment compromised the integrity of the site we
created both by damaging individual artifacts and by altering the
spatial relationships between them. The experiment reported
here demonstrates that such treatments are likely to adversely
affect cultural resources, including both surface and sub-surface
archaeological sites. Because such adverse impacts are demonstrably likely, land managers who oversee mechanical vegetation
treatment under conditions covered by the NHPA should initiate the Section 106 process to ensure that their activities remain
in compliance. For archaeologists concerned with the integrity
of the sites they study, this experiment also has implications.
Surface and near-surface sites found within areas that have previously been subjected to mechanical treatments cannot be
assumed to be wholly intact.
Acknowledgments
The University of Alaska Museum and the United States Army
Garrison Alaska (USAG-AK) provided funding for this project.
Stone tools used in the experiment were produced by Bruce
Bradley. The artifact distribution map was produced by Mike
Davis of the Center for Environmental Management of Military
Lands (CEMML) at Colorado State University. David Cory, Erin
Rice, and Scott Shirar assisted with the field portion of the
experiment. The conclusions reported here are those of the
authors alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of the
United States Army on whose lands this work was conducted.
References Cited
Zachman, D.
2003 Mechanical Treatments to Meet Resource Needs. U.S. Bureau
of Land Management, Resource Notes #67. Available at
http://www.blm.gov/nstc/resourcenotes/respdf/RN67.pdf.
ARTICLE
THE COUNCIL OF AFFILIATED SOCIETIES
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
Hester A. Davis and Marcel Kornfeld
Hester A. Davis is retired State Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey and is currently Secretary of CoAS. Marcel Kornfeld is Associate Professor
of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming, Director of the Frison Institute, and newsletter editor of the CoAS.
T
he Council of Affiliated Societies (CoAS) joins avocational and amateur archaeology groups to the SAA for the
common goal of enhancing the study of archaeology. In
existence since 1991, the Council holds annual meetings, edits
a newsletter, cosponsors the poster competition, provides visibility for its members at the annual SAA meetings, and sponsors meeting sessions. The purpose of this exposé is to enhance
awareness of CoAS throughout the archaeological community.
In that vein, we present the history, current programs, and
future visions for the Council.
History
Earl Lubensky is the father of CoAS. His background itself is
important to an understanding of his efforts, because he has
been both an amateur and a professional archaeologist. He has
recently received his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of
Missouri after a long career in the Foreign Service.
At the 1985 SAA meeting, Earl asked to meet with the Executive
Board and raised questions about participation of amateurs and
about the SAA objective to foster the formation and welfare of
the state and local archaeological societies. The Board expressed
an interest in the issues and asked Earl to pursue them. Earl was
also appointed to the SAA Membership Committee. In 1986, he
had accumulated the names and addresses of about 160
local/regional archaeological societies and sent a letter to them
asking for a reaction to the idea of an association of some kind
of state, provincial, and local archaeological societies in the US
and Canada. Response over the next two years was essentially
favorable, with the main problem being the statement in the
SAA Bylaws Section 2 that declared (at the time) that the SAA
was opposed to the practice of collecting archaeological materials for the sole purpose of personal satisfaction.
In 1987, the SAA Board approved a motion to send the SAA Bulletin (as The SAA Archaeological Record was called at the time) to
one person in state and local societies in North America for a
year on a trial basis. A successful gathering was held at the 1988
SAA meeting in Phoenix for a discussion between all interested
parties. In 1989, the SAA revised its Bylaws to provide for affiliation of local, state, and regional organizations with similar
goals (See Article XIV–Affiliated Units of the SAA Bylaws) and
to establish a new affiliate membership in the SAA (Individual
Affiliate members currently pay $40 and receive The SAA
Archaeological Record). Earl continued his memos to the 160
organizations on his list and received official documents from
21 societies interested in affiliation. He was appointed by the
SAA to chair a Task Force to draw up bylaws for CoAS; the first
meeting of this Task Force was in 1990 at the SAA Las Vegas
meeting. The first formal meeting of CoAS was at the 1991 SAA
annual meeting in New Orleans. As of 2006, we are 15 years old.
At the 1991 SAA meeting, Jerry Sabloff, then the President of
the SAA, presented Earl a Presidential Recognition Award for
the persistence and success of his efforts. This recognition was
certainly appropriate, and it was, indeed, Earl who persisted in
this goal to bring amateurs and professionals into a closer working relationship.
Current Status, Programs, and Membership
Currently 24 societies are members of CoAS. Most have been
steady members for some time, but there have been some losses. The representation is from across the US and Canada, but it
is clear that too many state and local societies are not members.
The SAA currently supports CoAS by keeping the membership
list, billing the societies for annual fees, providing booths at the
SAA annual meetings, and printing and distributing the
newsletter. The most successful and visible programs of the
Council are the booth, the newsletter, cosponsorship of archaeology month/week poster contests, and most recently the CoASsponsored symposium. The SAA-provided booth offers a prominent place to member societies to display materials contributed
by them, including brochures with membership information,
posters, newsletters, or other promotional material for free distribution. Member societies can also send copies of their journal and other promotional material, such as mugs or t-shirts, as
well as ordering information for such material.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
35
ARTICLE
The CoAS Newsletter is a biannual publication that reports on
member society activities and volunteer efforts. The purpose of
the newsletter is to enhance communication, interaction, and
cooperation between member societies as well as between the
society and the SAA. It is distributed to one officer of each member society, and because these usually change yearly, we often
get little to no response from member societies. Since state society activity is often at the chapter level, most chapters do not see
the CoAS newsletter itself. However, the newsletter has recently been posted on the SAA website and should be available to all
members in affiliated societies. Additionally, each individual
member of an affiliated society can have access to the SAA
Member’s Only website section. Difficulties with the new SAA
computer system as well as with password distribution currently are being worked out by CoAS officers.
Perhaps the most successful CoAS program has been the
cosponsorship of the archaeology month/week poster competition. Each year, SAA holds the competition adjacent to the CoAS
booth. The SAA Public Education Committee cosponsors the
competition with the Council. The submitted posters are voted
on by the membership, and three prizes are awarded annually;
last year’s prizes went to Wyoming (1st), Georgia (2nd), and California (3rd).
In 2005, CoAS sponsored its own symposium at the 70th Annual Meeting of the SAA on avocational-professional relations,
titled “The Contributions of Amateurs/Avocationals to Archaeology and the Purpose of the Council for Affiliated Societies.”
The session, organized and chaired by Hester A. Davis of the
Arkansas Archaeological Survey, was a resounding success.
Eight papers were presented at the session and included both
avocational and professional authors. The papers generally
focused on successes of specific programs or evaluation of past
programs (see CoAS Newsletter v. 11 Spring 2005, or the SAA
70th Annual Meeting Program and Abstracts). Passport in
Time, museum building, education, stewardship, and training
were among the topics discussed by the individual papers. A
number of issues were addressed in the ensuing discussion, but
several stand out: (1) although there are a lot of interest groups
in the SAA, avocationals form a national base of 10,000s if not
100,000s of potential supporters; (2) most members of the SAA,
including the board, do not have any idea what CoAS is or does;
and (3) avocationals are not regularly nominated to the SAA
Executive Board, and perhaps there should be an avocational
line on the Board, as now appears to be the case for some interest groups. Another result of the session was a decision to continue sponsoring paper or poster symposia concerned with avocational/professional relations and cooperation at future SAA
annual meetings.
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The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Representatives of member societies meet annually to conduct
CoAS business and elect officers. Topics of discussion include
problems faced by member societies (for example, membership
loss and lack of professionals for guidance of specific projects),
increasing membership, improvement in or sponsorship of
new programs, and enhancing the visibility of the Council. Minutes of past meetings can be read in CoAS newsletters.
The Future
Representatives of member societies who have been active in
keeping CoAS viable want to see it continue as a communication mechanism but also would like to see more participation in
CoAS by the SAA in some fashion. Currently, a member of the
SAA Board of Directors meets with the CoAS officers and member representatives each year at the SAA meeting. This person
usually changes every two years as the SAA Board of Directors
members come and go. Presumably, this person also reports to
the Board on the discussions at the CoAS meeting, and as a
Standing Committee of the SAA, the CoAS president makes a
written report to the Board each the spring. So we know that the
Board, at least, knows that CoAS exists, but we have doubts that
the rest of the SAA membership knows, much less knows why.
So, what can CoAS do for member societies? One very ambitious idea is to work with the SAA Board to create a Lectureship
Program, similar in some ways to that of the Archaeological
Institute of America. This would be a major undertaking and
would have to be funded largely by member societies. For example, a Society would pay the visiting lecturers travel and per
diem, but the SAA would have a fund (perhaps from donations)
to pay a standard honorarium to each lecturer.
We feel that if the SAA is to fulfill its mission to foster the formation and welfare of state and local archaeological societies, it
needs to have more involvement with the care and feeding of
state and local societies, many of whom are losing members. A
shot in the arm would be interesting programs by visiting lecturers, perhaps a half-day workshop/seminar at the SAA annual meeting on pros and cons of training programs and how they
work, or about certification and stewardship programs. What
about an SAA publication aimed at one or more of these topics
that would be useful to both professionals and amateurs in
cooperating on development of these (or other) kinds of state
programs? And finally, as was discussed at the 2005 CoASsponsored session in Salt Lake City, what about changing the
SAA By-Laws so that amateurs, through the CoAS, could have
equal representation on the SAA Board of Directors? Now,
there’s a challenge!
EDITOR’S CORNER
Frequency of SAA-AR Citations
16
14
12
Number of Citations
10
8
6
4
2
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
Year of Citation
EDITOR’S CORNER, from page 2 <
A reflection of the growing status of the The SAA Archaeological
Record is reflected by the citation rates of its content. Although
the magazine is not indexed in the ISI Web of Knowledge’s
Journal Citation Reports, citation rates can be tracked through
their Web of Science’s cited reference search. The results mirror
what I discovered during a similarly simple analysis discussed
in my Editor’s Corner over two years ago (5[1]:2)—The SAA
Archaeological Record articles are increasingly cited in professional journals. Figure 2 (above) shows my recent assessment of
citation rates, illustrating the continuing respect earned by the
valuable articles published in The SAA Archaeological Record.
Innumerable people deserve credit for the growing importance
of this publication. The Associate Editors who solicited content
and reviewed submissions provide an invaluable yet largely
invisible service to the Society, and my thanks go to each of
them: Mark Aldenderfer, Cory Breternitz, Hester Davis, Kurt
Dongoske, John Hoopes, José Luis Lanata, Gabriela Uruñuela,
and Anne Vawser. Georgia State University graduate assistants
who have helped include Lynn Hale, Ron Hobgood, and Erin
Hudson. John Neikirk, manager of publications at SAA, has
been extraordinarily patient and helpful. Georgia State University and the School for Advanced Research deserve gratitude for
hosting the editorship. But the greatest thanks go to all of the
contributors to The SAA Archaeological Record whose hard work
makes this a success! Thanks!
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0
New Editor Contact Information
Andrew Duff, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University, officially took over the magazine at the
SAA Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. His first issue will be in
September 2007. Potential contributors can contact Andrew at
the following addresses:
Dr. Andrew Duff
Department of Anthropology
P.O. Box 644910
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-4910
tel: (509) 335-7282
email: [email protected]
In email correspondence to Andrew, please add “SAA Archaeological Record” to the subject line to ensure that the email is not
flagged as junk mail.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
37
ARTICLE
WETHERILL STEW
David A. Phillips Jr.
David A. Phillips Jr. is Curator of Archaeology at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.
T
his dish was created by John Wetherill, who at the end of
a trip would combine his chuckbox leftovers into a final
night’s stew. Emil Haury learned the dish from Wetherill,
standardized it, and made it a regular feature of his own outings. In 1974, I was fortunate enough to be part of Haury’s graduate seminar, and during the
field trip, on April 13th of that
year, he allowed me to serve as a
“participant observer” of that
night’s stew-making.
or added ingredients. Final preparation of ingredients was done
as the fire burned down and between the steps listed below.
(4:30 P.M., coals ready) Cut the bacon into 1-inch segments and
dump into the Dutch ovens. Cover and let fry.
(4:37) Add cubed meat. Cover,
add coals to lids, and let braise.
(4:43) Salt and pepper generously, replace lids.
(4:49) Add beef broth, replace
lids.
Ingredients
(4:55) Add the chopped fresh
11⁄2 lbs. sliced bacon
vegetables, replace lids.
2 cans (17 oz.) sweet corn
(4:57) Add new coals.
2 cans (15 oz.) butter beans
2 cans Campbell’s Beef Broth
(5:18) Slowly add the canned
3 cans (17 oz.) tomatoes
vegetables while stirring.
1
⁄2 lb. “good” meat per person
Replace lids. This would be a
(on this occasion, 6 lbs. round
good time to start the dumpling
steak)
batter.
2 bunches carrots
Dumpling batter: 2 heaping
7 or 8 potatoes
tablespoons or more of
4 or 5 onions
Bisquick; “some” (less than 1⁄24 cloves of garlic, finely
can) condensed milk, 1 egg.
chopped
Add water while beating until
1 bunch of celery
Figure 1: Adding the sherry. Helga Tiewes, photographer, 1967. Courtesy
the desired consistency is
2 bell peppers
Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Negative No. 14950.
reached.
1 fifth of cooking sherry
salt
(5:28) Add new coals.
pepper
(5:41) Add the sherry; stir; replace lids.
Dumplings: Bisquick, 1 can condensed milk, 1 egg, water.
Instructions
This is a “double batch” recipe, for two Dutch ovens. Half of
each ingredient was put in each Dutch oven. Using juniper and
oak, Dr. Haury built up a supply of hot coals; the stew is cooked
with coals only. He lay two pieces of wood on the ground, parallel to each other, to hold the lids of the Dutch ovens as he stirred
38
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
(5:45) Add dollops of dumpling batter to top of stew. Replace lids
and add plenty of coals to top to promote browning.
(6:02 P.M.) Done!
INSIGHTS
BRIDGING THE GREAT DIVIDE
HOW ACADEMIC ARCHAEOLOGY CAN SERVE THE
CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY
Timothy L. McAndrews
Timothy L. McAndrews is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
B
efore attempting to address the issue of how academic
archaeology can serve the cultural resource management
(CRM) industry, it is important that I share a little bit
about my background and why I began considering this question. I am, I suppose, what a “CRM archaeologist” might irreverently refer to as an “academic archaeologist.” When referred
to in a derogatory sense, academic archaeologists are often perceived as out of touch with “real world” archaeology and completely ignorant of the practical realm of the CRM industry. Our
recent graduates, most of whom enter a more practical world
than our own, unwittingly walk around with double scarlet letters branded on their chests—”AA” for “academic archaeologist.” These Hester Prynnes are branded as such through no
fault of their own; rather, their exposure to academic archaeologists is why they are viewed with some contempt by the industry in which they expect to obtain gainful employment. We are
their Roger Chillingworths. We have ruined them without overt
consequence to ourselves, but great consequence to them. Their
future employers will eventually need to rehabilitate them,
teach them how to do real archaeology, and get them to fully
appreciate what the term “deadline” means.
I know all of this because, in another life, I was what an “academic archaeologist” might rudely dismiss as a “CRM archaeologist.” I would cringe every time I received a résumé from a
recent graduate—especially an M.A. or Ph.D.—who had never
done archaeology in a CRM context and had little if any relevant
experience for the position I needed to fill.
The divide between academic and CRM archaeology is not new.
It has been a point of contention ever since the establishment
and growth of the CRM industry, and recently it was the primary
topic in the March 2004 issue of The SAA Archaeological Record
(4[2]). However, more and more of us in academia have extensive experience working in a “real world” CRM context. Despite
this and recent dialogue on the divide, as well as despite the fact
that the vast majority of archaeologists working in the U.S. ultimately find employment in the CRM industry, there remain relatively few graduate programs in this country that are primarily
designed to train archaeologists to enter professional positions
in CRM archaeology.
This brings me to why I began considering the issue posed in
the title. For several years now, my departmental colleagues and
I have considered the establishment of a M.A. degree program
in archaeology, one primarily geared toward preparing students
to enter professional positions in archaeology, particularly positions in which they would be conducting archaeological
research within a CRM context. Following the trend of other
comprehensive universities nationwide, my university has been
encouraging the development of more graduate programs, and
therefore we now have the institutional support required to proceed. As an ex-CRM guy, I was tasked with conducting a feasibility study for developing such a program and outlining the
structure of that program.
The ACRA Survey
In the summer of 2006, I embraced the difficult task of designing an academic program that would serve the needs of the
archaeological sector of the CRM industry—a program whose
graduates would be sought out by the industry rather than
shunned by it. It occurred to me that a good way to evaluate how
to structure this program was to consult current CRM professionals regarding what they consider to be the most important
professional qualities and skills in job applicants for archaeological positions. I therefore designed an online survey that was
posted on the American Cultural Resources Association
(ACRA) email list in June 2006. The survey consisted of both
multiple-choice and open-ended questions. There were a total of
69 responses. I was immediately impressed by the data, particularly since it adds to the recent findings of Yu et al. (2006). The
remainder of this article presents the results of the survey.
The questions from the online survey are listed below. All questions except for Questions 3, 4, and 15 are multiple-choice, each
having the same rank-order choices: Very Important, Important, Neutral, Unimportant, and Very Unimportant. Questions
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
39
INSIGHTS
3, 4, and 15 are open-ended questions that provided more flexibility for respondents to express their opinions.
requiring a comprehensive exam that covers a Master’s candidate’s theoretical and regional areas of specialty?
15.Please provide any other comments that you think might
guide us in evaluating the feasibility of such a program as
well as the structure/content of the program.
1. How would you rate the importance of the establishment of
graduate programs specifically designed to serve the CRM
industry?
2. How would you rate the need for newly qualified professional archaeologists that meet the qualification and ethical standards of the Register of Professional Archaeologists?
3. What professional skills and/or qualities do you find most
lacking in recent job applicants?
4. What professional skills and/or qualities do you find most
desirable in applicants that have a Master’s degree?
5. How would you rate the importance of quantitative methods
(statistics, sampling, data analysis, etc.) in professional
archaeology?
6. How would you rate the importance of geographical information systems (GIS) in professional archaeology?
7. How would you rate the importance of collections management in professional archaeology?
8. How would you rate the importance of an understanding of
CRM legislation such as the National Historic Preservation
Act (Section 106), National Environmental Policy Act, etc.?
9. How would you rate the importance of the ability to identify,
analyze, and properly treat human skeletal remains for a professional archaeologist?
10.How would you rate the importance of public education/outreach in professional archaeology?
11.How would you rate the importance of an understanding of
the history and theory of archaeology for today’s professional archaeologist?
12.How would you rate the importance of an understanding of
the history and theory of anthropology for today’s professional archaeologist?
13.How would you rate the importance of requiring a Master’s
thesis for a Master’s degree in professional archaeology?
14.For such a program, how would you rate the importance of
The data generated from responses to the multiple-choice questions are listed in Table 1. Based on the survey, CRM professionals feel strongly that the establishment of graduate programs in archaeology that serve the CRM industry is important
(Question 1). A total of 87.2 percent of survey respondents rated
the establishment of such programs as very important (48.6 percent) or important (38.6 percent). There is also an expressed
need for professional archaeologists to meet the established
standards defined by the Register of Professional Archaeologists (Question 2). Again, the vast majority of respondents, 80.0
percent, believe it is very important (45.7 percent) or important
(34.3 percent) for these standards to be met.
Questions 3 and 4 are open ended and allowed respondents to
identify the qualities and skill sets that they feel are important for
professional archaeologists working in a CRM context. The first
(Question 3) asked what skills or qualities are lacking, and the
second (Question 4) asked respondents to list the most desirable
traits in a professional archaeologist. A close examination of the
127 responses to these two questions revealed a number of qualities and skill sets that a graduate program in CRM archaeology
should provide. Strikingly, by far the most commonly cited deficiency characterizing job applicants for positions in CRM is good
technical writing skills. Therefore, it is crucial that any M.A. program require extensive involvement in the writing and preparation of professional compliance reports. In addition to preparing
research papers in coursework, students should be encouraged
to engage in technical writing during an internship experience
that is practical for the CRM industry. Moreover, the requirement of an intensive, rigorously researched and comprehensive
Master’s thesis is essential. This claim is further supported by
the fact that 84.0 percent of respondents to Question 13 feel it is
Table 1. Responses to multiple-choice questions.
Percentage of Each Response
No. Question Topic
1
2
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
40
Need for M.A. Programs
Meeting RPA Standards
Quantitative Methods
GIS Technology
Collections Management
Grasp of Legislation
Human Remains
Public Outreach
Archaeological Theory
Anthropological Theory
Master's Thesis
Comprehensive Exam
Very Important
Important
Neutral
Unimportant
Very Unimportant
48.6%
45.7%
33.3%
47.1%
19.7%
76.8%
25.7%
32.9%
21.7%
13.2%
53.6%
21.7%
38.6%
34.3%
50.7%
37.1%
40.8%
18.8%
41.4%
40.0%
43.5%
42.6%
30.4%
36.2%
7.1%
12.9%
11.6%
15.7%
31.0%
4.3%
31.4%
20.0%
26.1%
27.9%
10.1%
27.5%
4.3%
4.3%
4.3%
0.0%
7.0%
0.0%
1.4%
7.1%
7.2%
10.3%
4.3%
8.7%
1.4%
2.9%
0.0%
0.0%
1.4%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
1.4%
5.9%
1.4%
5.8%
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
INSIGHTS
Table 2. List of additional skill sets repeatedly cited in the survey.
General
Specific
Understanding of Legislation
Specific legislation
Working knowledge of policy making process
Ability to navigate complex compliance process
Understanding of purpose of legislation
Understanding of broader planning process and the role of archaeology in that process
Practical “Real World” Experience
Working in CRM context
Fieldwork in the region
Lab work and analysis
Orienteering, mapping, and surveying skills
Understanding of regional material culture/culture history
Specialized analysis (lithics, ceramics, soils, GIS, etc.)
OSHA guidelines
Project Management and Business Skills
Personnel management
Budget management
Time management
Proposals and contracts
Marketing
Leadership
Verbal communication skills (with clients, public, etc.)
Technology
Word processing, spreadsheets, databases
Global Positioning Systems (GPS), total stations
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
Statistics, sampling, and quantitative methods
Supervisory Experience
Field and lab supervision
Contribution to Anthropology/Archaeology
Develop and implement research design (MA thesis)
Understanding of key anthropological issues
Ethics
Business ethics vs. archaeological ethics
important (30.4 percent) or very important (53.6 percent) to
require a thesis in an M.A. program.
A number of additional qualities and skill sets were repeatedly
cited as necessary for professional archaeologists working in a
CRM context (Table 2). They generally include a strong understanding of the legislation that drives CRM, practical experience, project management and business skills, a mastery of a
wide variety of technologies (particularly computer-based technologies), supervisory experience, an appreciation of CRM
archaeology’s contribution to important and current anthropological and archaeological research issues, and a grasp of the
ethics of business and archaeology. Since there is significant
demand for professionals with practical experience, it seems
important for graduate programs that train professional CRM
archaeologists to require an internship or practicum experience.
In fact, the University of South Florida was praised more than
once by respondents for its inclusion of this type of experience
in the public archaeology track of their M.A. program in applied
anthropology. Several findings of this survey support an article
in the March 2004 issue of The SAA Archaeological Record that
details that program (White et al. 2004).
Questions 5 through 12 were multiple-choice questions regarding the importance of specific skills. The majority of respondents viewed all of the skill sets as important or very important,
which was not surprising (Table 3; Figure 1). Therefore, comparing the relative importance attributed to each was useful for
evaluating the results. An understanding of the legislation that
drives CRM archaeology, the application of GIS and survey technology, and the ability to implement sophisticated quantitative
methods (statistics, sampling, data analysis, etc.) are relatively
important. Secondary to these three skill sets, although still considered fairly important, is public education and outreach.
Finally, the identification, analysis, and treatment of human
skeletal remains; collections management; and history and theory of archaeology and anthropology are all considered important, although relatively less important than the other skill sets
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
41
INSIGHTS
Table 3. Importance of specific skill sets for professional archaeologists, in order of importance based on the survey.
Skill Set
Responses
Understanding of Legislation
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Important or Very Important
Neutral, Unimportant, or Very Unimportant
Geographical Information Systems
Quantitative Methods
Public Education/Outreach
Identify, Analyze, and Properly Treat Human Skeletal Remains
History and Theory of Archaeology
Collections Management
History and Theory of Anthropology
96%
4%
84%
16%
84%
16%
73%
27%
67%
33%
65%
35%
61%
39%
56%
44%
identified in the survey.
of students’ performance in required and elective coursework.
One of the rather disheartening results of the survey was the relatively low-rated importance of collections management.
Despite a growing dialogue regarding the curation and collections management crisis that we face (notably called for by Sullivan and Childs 2003), collections management still ranks relatively low in importance. The survey results are an indication
that the profession, as a whole, has yet to embrace the true significance of this crisis.
The final question (15) was an open-ended question requesting
additional comments regarding the feasibility, structure, and
curriculum of such programs. A number of the respondents
enthusiastically supported the development of these programs,
and most responses reflect the concerns indicated in the rest of
the survey. In particular, comments tended to focus on the
importance of providing practical experience in working in the
field and lab, navigating the legislative compliance process,
managing projects, and writing technically.
Questions 13 and 14 relate to the importance of requiring a thesis and comprehensive exam, respectively, for the M.A. degree.
A total of 84.0 percent of respondents indicated that requiring a
thesis is important (30.4 percent) or very important (53.6 percent). Again, the lack of writing skills expressed in the openended questions discussed above provides evidence that an
extensive, thoughtful, and detailed M.A. thesis should be
required. Students interested in seeking employment in CRM
archaeology should certainly be exposed to the technical writing
required in compliance reports prepared in a CRM context;
however, they should also be capable of preparing publishable
works that derive from the more technical presentation typified
in the “gray literature.”
The response regarding the importance of a comprehensive
exam was mixed. Only 57.9 percent of respondents indicated
that the requirement of a comprehensive exam is important
(36.2 percent) or very important (21.7 percent), quite low relative to the perceived importance of a M.A. thesis. The primary
role of comprehensive exams is to evaluate students’ mastery of
the theoretical foundations of the discipline as well as their
regional expertise. Apparently there is division regarding
whether or not this can be achieved, instead, by careful scrutiny
42
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Lessons from the Survey
Overall, a divided message is evident in the survey results. On
the one hand, there is little or no demand for archaeologists
who hold M.A. degrees that were obtained without rigorous
exposure to “real world” archaeological research conducted in a
CRM context. On the other hand, the industry seems to be calling out for the creation of high-quality, practical programs that
provide students training essential to today’s industry. Most of
us that have conducted archaeological research in a CRM context learned by doing it, and we recognize the importance of that
process. However, with more and more of us entering academia, we are now in a position to mold academic programs to the
needs of the industry that the vast majority of our graduates will
enter. In fact, I believe it is our responsibility to do so.
I hope that I have illustrated the potential in open dialogue
between academic archaeologists and professionals working in
the CRM industry. As I am sure most of you have already noted,
>INSIGHTS, continued on page 60
IN MEMORIAM
ALFRED EDWARD DITTERT, JR.
1922–2006
lfred E. Dittert, Jr. passed away on June 16, 2006, shortly after celebrating 60 years of marriage with his wife,
Audrey. Known to his family, friends, and colleagues as
“Ed,” or “Dr. D,” he was renowned for his dry sense of humor
and patience with students and his unique expertise in Southwestern archaeological ceramics. Born in Dallas, Texas in
1922, Ed grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1943, he
was working on his B.A. in anthropology
with a minor in geology at the University
of New Mexico when World War II intervened. He served in the armed forces for
three years, including being present at the
Battle of the Bulge, then returned home in
1946 to marry Audrey Richard (who
earned her B.A. in anthropology in 1944).
Ed completed his B.A. in 1947 and immediately started on fieldwork for his M.A. in
the Cebolleta Mesa area of New Mexico.
A
Of historical interest to archaeologists, at
the time that Ed was surveying in the
Acoma area, standard archaeological practice was to only record large sites. He had to convince his professors to allow him to record the smaller sites. Ed introduced
Rey Ruppé to the area, and for a number of years, Ed, Rey, and
their wives, Audrey and Carol, were the primary archaeologists working in the Cebolleta Mesa area, recording several
hundred archaeological sites in the course of their investigations. Ed finished his M.A. in 1949 and decided to continue
research in the area for his doctoral studies at the University
of Arizona under Raymond Thompson and Emil Haury. He
received his Ph.D. in 1959.
Meanwhile, Dittert’s subsequent career was taking root. In
1952, the Pueblo of Acoma engaged him as their first archae-
ologist and ethnologist to help them pursue land claim issues
before the Indian Claims Commission. His work with the
Acoma was to continue throughout his life. Then, in 1955,
Stanley Stubbs at the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe
hired Ed, where his initial responsibilities included helping
Alfred Kidder excavate the Lost Pecos Mission. He then
became involved in the Navajo Dam and Reservoir project
and various highway salvage projects.
Later, a promotion to Curator of Salvage
Archaeology made him responsible for
all salvage work in the state. In 1963, Dittert was appointed Director of the Laboratory of Anthropology, where he
remained until he was hired by Arizona
State University (ASU) in 1967.
Dr. Dittert taught at ASU until his retirement in 1987, when he was promoted to
Professor Emeritus. During his time
with ASU, Ed directed numerous field
projects throughout Arizona. His recognized achievements include receiving
the Historic Preservation Special Achievement Award from
the Arizona Governor in 1984 and the Victor R. Stoner Award
from the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society in
1998. In 2001, the Pueblo of Acoma gave him a Commendation for his 50 years of research assistance to the Pueblo. Arizona State University has dedicated their Archaeological
Ceramic Collection in his honor.
—Eric Dittert and Judy Brunson-Hadley
Eric Dittert is the son of Ed Dittert. Judy Brunson-Hadley is the owner of
Brunson Cultural Resources Services, L.L.C. and worked with Ed for over
30 years, first as a grad student, then as a colleague.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
43
IN MEMORIAM
MARJORIE FERGUSON LAMBERT
1908–2006
Marjorie Ferguson Lambert, 98, died on December 16, 2006,
in Santa Fe, NM. Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on June
13, 1908, Marjorie earned a B.A. in social anthropology from
Colorado College in 1930 and a M.A. in archaeology and
anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 1931. In a
career spanning more than six decades, Marjorie has left her
imprint on Southwestern anthropology, archaeology, and history. She devoted her life to the study and advancement of our
understanding of the presence of humans upon the landscape
of the American Southwest in the past, as well as to
the preservation of the arts and cultures of living
Native American and Hispano peoples of New Mexico. She became a professional archaeologist and
museum curator at a time when there were relatively few women establishing full-time careers in either
profession.
Marjorie’s life experiences were intricately involved
with the development of Southwestern archaeology
and its supporting institutions, including the University of New Mexico, the School of American Research
(SAR), and the Museum of New Mexico (MNM). The choices
she made throughout her career were influenced early on by an
intriguing cast of characters, in particular Edgar L. Hewett, Sylvanus G. Morley, Alfred V. Kidder, Kenneth Chapman, and
Harry P. Mera.
One of the early pioneers of ethnohistorical and ethnoarchaeological techniques, Marjorie hired Native American and Hispano men as crew members on her excavations. She often
consulted them about her findings and incorporated their oral
traditions and histories into her analyses and interpretations
of the past, making her approach much different from other
archaeologists at the time. Between 1932 and 1936, she supervised archaeological excavations at Tecolote, Puaray, Kuaua,
Giusewa, and Pa’ako in New Mexico.
When Marjorie joined the MNM staff in 1937 as the curator
of archaeology, she was one of the first women to occupy such
a major curatorial position in the country. Marjorie enjoyed a
32-year career with the MNM even though this limited her
archaeological pursuits. Nevertheless, in 1944, she was able to
work at Yuque Yunque, the first Spanish capital known as a
San Gabriel, located near Oke Owinge Pueblo, and in 1960,
she conducted a survey and cave excavations in Hidalgo
County. It was here that Marjorie and Richard Ambler recovered a hunting net of human hair measuring 151 feet in
length from U-Bar Cave.
44
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Marjorie authored almost 200 articles for American Antiquity,
El Palacio, New Mexico Anthropologist, New Mexico Magazine,
two monographs for SAR, and several review articles and
forewords to books. In addition to her numerous publications, Marjorie gave countless lectures and organized numerous museum exhibits introducing the general public to New
Mexico’s Native American and Hispano peoples. Marjorie’s
dedication to anthropology and archaeology was recognized
on several occasions through professional awards, including
the 50th Award for Outstanding Contributions to
American Archaeology by the Society of American
Archaeology in 1984, the New Mexico Heritage
Preservation Award in 1988, and the Byron S. Cummings Award from the Arizona Archaeological and
Historical Society in 1996. She was also recognized
for her years of service to Santa Fe’s arts and cultural organizations, and Marjorie and her husband Jack
were recognized as “Living Treasures of Santa Fe” in
1988. The MNM Board of Regents named Marjorie
as Curator Emeritus of the Laboratory of Anthropology, and she served as a SAR board member from 1971 to
1989.
It was important to Marjorie that anthropology and archaeology be relevant and accessible to the public. She always had
the deepest respect for the numerous Native Americans and
Hispanos that she knew and worked with throughout her
career, many of whom became lifelong friends. These friendships were strengthened through her interest and concern for
the preservation of their arts and cultural traditions. Her
active involvement in the Indian Arts Fund, the New Mexico
Association on Indian Affairs (now the Southwest Association
on Indian Arts, or SWAIA) and the annual Santa Fe Indian
Market, and the Spanish Colonial Society and the annual
Spanish Market also brought her into contact with numerous
artists, as well as their supporters and patrons.
Recognized as one of the “Daughters of the Desert” by Barbara Babcock and Nancy Parezo (University of New Mexico
Press, 1988), Marjorie Lambert blazed the trail for the next
generation of women archaeologists and anthropologists to
follow.
—Shelby J. Tisdale
Shelby J. Tisdale is Director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
REPORT FROM THE SAA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Michael A. Glassow
Michael A. Glassow is the Secretary for the Society for American Archaeology.
T
he Board of Directors met over the course of two days,
April 25 and 28, 2007, at the 72nd Annual Meeting in
Austin, Texas. The outgoing Board met on the 25th, with
President Ken Ames presiding, and the incoming Board met on
the 28th, with President Dean Snow presiding. This Board
meeting followed the normal format, starting with reports by
each of the officers and the Society’s Executive Director. After
the officers’ reports, the Board assessed the fiscal status of the
Society and considered the reports submitted by the 27 standing
committees of the Society, the editors of its various publications,
the chairs of the two committees concerned with planning and
organization of the Austin meeting, and one of the Board subcommittees. The Board learned during the course of its meeting
that the turnout in Austin was the second largest in the Society’s
history, with 3,653 attendees. (The largest was in New Orleans
in 2001.)
President Ames discussed in his report the various actions
taken in the course of the Society’s monitoring of governmental
initiatives that could affect archaeology. He announced that the
Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) had developed a
memorandum of understanding with Peru’s Colegio de
Arqueólogos del Perú (COARPE) that will allow RPA registration to be comparable to COARPE certification, necessary for
undertaking fieldwork in Peru. He mentioned that the Society
played an important role in negotiations leading to the agreement. Executive Director Tobi Brimsek reported that the new
Information Services Manager in the SAA office in Washington
D.C. is now trained and that new software for managing submission of symposium proposals and paper abstracts for Annual Meetings is nearing completion by a software development
firm. She reported that three student interns had recently
worked in the office with staff members and that the use of
interns will continue. Other activities requiring her attention
included interacting with various of the Society’s committees,
especially the Fundraising and Public Education Committees.
She also noted that a good deal of staff time was devoted to planning for the Austin meeting and next year’s meeting in Vancouver and that negotiations are ongoing with JSTOR for an article-
on-demand service. Treasurer Susan Chandler reported that the
Society is financially healthy. She pointed out that the Society is
in the third year of the Society’s 75th anniversary endowment
campaign, which is going well, and that interest from endowments funded the three interns who worked in the SAA office
and a new student research award. Treasurer Chandler also
mentioned that overhead expenses are rising, but that online
elections and electronic meeting abstracts will result in future
savings.
Regarding fiscal matters, the Board once again raised the
reserves target, this time from 60 to 65 percent of one year’s
operating costs. Increasing the reserves will help the Society
survive hard times, which have occurred occasionally in the
past. The Board also moved to use allocatable surplus for special
projects, including the 75th Anniversary Campaign, a special
themed issue of The SAA Archaeological Record in conjunction
with INAH, and support for INAH representatives to continue
the ongoing dialog between SAA and INAH.
The Society’s many committees carry out a substantial amount
of work in helping the Society fulfill its mission, so it is no surprise that most of the time at Board meetings is devoted to discussing committee reports, meeting with some of the chairs to
discuss issues, and addressing action items that committees
bring to the Board. To facilitate communication between the
Board and the committees, each Board member serves as a liaison to a group of committees, as well as interest groups. At each
spring Board meeting, liaison assignments are adjusted in light
of some members leaving and others joining the Board. In the
course of considering committee reports at this spring’s meeting, the Board decided to sunset two: the Committee on Meetings Development, because responsibilities have shifted to the
Board over the years as Annual Meetings have become increasingly successful; and the Poster Award Committee (and the
poster awards), now that poster sessions are a well-established
and popular aspect of annual meetings.
The Board continued its efforts to increase diversity within the
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
45
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
The SAA Board of Directors (from left to right): Susan M. Chandler, Scott E. Simmons, Dorothy T. Lippert, Michael A. Glassow,
Dean R. Snow, Jonathan Driver, Emily McClung de Tapia, Paul D. Welch, Kathryn Kamp, Tobi A. Brimsek.
Society and archaeology generally. Responding to a report by the
Board Subcommittee on Diversity Initiatives, the Board established two task forces to seek funding for diversity scholarships.
The Board also charged all SAA committees to develop strategies for strengthening diversity in their objectives consistent
with SAA’s Statement on Diversity.
Board position. These descriptions go well beyond those in the
Society’s Bylaws and are meant to help Board members understand their responsibilities, as well as provide information on
Board member responsibilities to prospective nominees for
Board positions. A complete set of job descriptions now exists,
but they are undergoing further review.
In light of the significance of the Society’s various publications
to its mission, the Board devoted significant time to assessing
their status and management. In addition to discussing the
activities of the Publications Committee with its chair, Cathy
Costin, the Board met with the editors of the Society’s publications, including Latin American Antiquity coeditors Mark Aldenderfer and José Luis Lanata, outgoing American Antiquity editor
Michael Jochim and incoming editor Steve Plog, and incoming
editor of The SAA Archaeological Record Andrew Duff. The
Board also appointed Paul Minnis as the Editor-elect of The SAA
Press.
The Board wishes to express its appreciation to all those who
have helped the Society in so many different ways. The effectiveness of volunteerism in the SAA is truly impressive. As well,
the Board recognizes the contribution of all those who organized symposia and presented papers or posters in furthering
archaeological knowledge and practice. Finally, the Board
encourages all members to participate in the 75th Anniversary
Campaign so that the Society’s Native American Scholarships
Fund, Public Education Endowment Fund, and SAA General
Endowment Fund will reach levels necessary to generate
income in support of the Society’s initiatives.
Over the past several months Board members with the aid of
the Executive Director developed job descriptions for each
46
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY 72ND
ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
MINUTES OF THE MEETING
President Ames called the Society for American Archaeology’s
72nd Business Meeting to order at 5:15 P.M. on April 27, 2007
in Austin, Texas. Noting that a quorum was present, he requested a motion to approve the minutes of the 71st Annual Business
Meeting held in San Juan, Puerto Rico on April 28, 2006 (these
minutes were published in The SAA Archaeological Record, volume 6, number 3). It was so moved, seconded, and the minutes
were approved.
President Ames noted that SAA membership is strong at 7,100
members. He stated that the financial news is good as well in
that the SAA has achieved its temporary goal of having 60 percent of one year’s operating costs invested in reserves. SAA continues to use funds effectively. This year on-line voting was
added to on-line dues renewal and meeting registration. This
coming Fall, members will be able to do on-line submittals of
symposia, paper titles, and abstracts. Paper options will remain
available.
President Ames indicated that SAA has been active in government affairs, monitoring the work of the Advisory Council for
Historic Preservation’s Archaeology Task Force concerning its
burial policy this past year, and will review its 106 guidance and
Heritage Tourism this coming year. SAA submitted extensive
commentary on several drafts on the new burial policy, which
was approved in February. An article by Dan Roberts on the Task
Force will be published in a forthcoming issue of The SAA
Archaeological Record. Anticipating the changes in Congress
after the November election, the SAA Government Affairs Committee developed a set of legislative priorities for SAA in order
to shift the Society to a more proactive stance.
President Ames stated that this year’s meeting, with 3,653 registrants and 219 sessions, now makes it the second-largest in
SAA history. The President thanked Program Chair Elizabeth
Chilton and her committee, Local Arrangements Co-Chairs
Patricia Mercado-Allinger and Patricia Wheat-Stranahan, Executive Director Tobi Brimsek and the SAA Staff for their efforts.
This year, the President’s Forum, on the Peopling of the Americas, was attended by more than 1,000 registrants. President
Ames noted that at this annual meeting, the third Boardsponsored session on working in Latin America focused on
Central America. SAA continues to work with the Register of
Professional Archaeologists and the College of Archaeologists
in Peru (COARPE) to establish reciprocity between RPA registration and the credentials required by COARPE. President
Ames urged SAA members to register with the Register of Professional Archaeologists, because registration not only advances
the discipline’s professionalism, it also provides a grievance
mechanism for addressing breaches of the ethical code for its
sponsoring organizations: SAA, SHA, and AIA.
President Ames noted that SAA will celebrate its 75th anniversary meeting in 2010 in St. Louis. Next year’s annual meeting
will be in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 2009 annual meeting will be in Atlanta Georgia, and SAA will hold its annual
meeting in Sacramento, CA in 2011. As part of the 75th
Anniversary celebration, two years ago SAA launched a major
fund-raising drive called “Give the SAA a Gift on its 75th” to
enlarge SAA endowments. The five-year campaign target is
$500,000.00 with presently $144,000 pledged. President Ames
explained that the Board considered two important numbers in
planning the campaign: SAA membership of roughly 7,000, and
second, a very high participation rate. With 100 percent participation, the target could be achieved by a $75 pledge, over five
years, from every member.
President Ames thanked Michael Jochim for his service as editor of American Antiquity, and John Kantner for his outstanding
six years of service as editor of The SAA Archaeological Record.
The President welcomed Steve Plog, incoming editor of American Antiquity, and Andrew Duff, incoming editor of The SAA
Archaeological Record. President Ames thanked the Nominating
Committee, chaired by George O’Dell, for an outstanding slate
of candidates, and all the candidates for their willingness to
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
47
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
serve their Society. The President acknowledged and thanked
outgoing officers and Board members, Linda Cordell, Secretary;
Sarah Schlanger, Board of Directors; and Miriam Stark, Board
of Directors.
Treasurer Susan Chandler reported 2006 was financially strong
for SAA, and 2006 ended with an allocatable surplus of
$106,000 as the result of an all-time high membership of 7,155
persons, a well-attended annual meeting, strong returns on
investments, and income from advertising and from publications, notably subscriptions and JSTOR royalties. Treasurer
Chandler noted the fundraising campaign for SAA’s general
endowment, Native American scholarships, and public education endowments is now in its third year with nearly $144,000
received thus far from over 400 donors. The treasurer stated the
Board put interest income from the endowments to work this
year, funding three student interns for the 2007 spring and fall
semesters in the Education and Outreach program, in public
relations/communications, and in government affairs. Another
$1,000 of the General Endowment interest was used to fund a
new Student Research award. Upcoming expenses include
replacement of outdated computer equipment, planning for the
Society’s 75th Anniversary, and the required annual fundraising
registration fees. The audited financial statements for fiscal year
2006 will be published in the November issue of The SAA
Archaeological Record.
Secretary Linda Cordell read the election results. Paul D. Welch
will serve as Treasurer-elect during 2007–08, taking over as Treasurer at the 2008 annual meeting. Kathryn A. Kamp and
Jonathan Damp were elected to the Board of Directors, replacing outgoing Directors Sarah Schlanger and Miriam Stark at the
close of the 2007 business meeting. Christine Hastorf and L.
Antonio Curet were elected to the 2007–08 nominating committee. Secretary Cordell thanked all those who served the SAA
by running in the SAA election, thanked SAA members for
increasing their participation in the election, and suggested that
participation will increase even more with electronic voting
beginning in 2008.
Executive Director Tobi Brimsek reflected on the positive energy among the SAA Board of Directors, members, and staff that
has encouraged SAA to grow. As part of that growth, a new webbased submissions system will be available for the 2008 Vancouver meeting. Torgom Pogossian joined the staff as manager,
Information Services and was thrust into the submission project development. During the transition there was also a productive review of SAA’s Information Services program. That review
resulted in distributing some of the information technology
tasks to the membership program headed by manager, Membership and Marketing, Kevin Fahey. Kevin’s marketing skill is
reflected in Austin in the 100 booths and a 19 percent growth
48
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Paul Welch
Kathryn A. Kamp
Jonathan Driver
factor. Coordinator, Membership and Marketing, Darren Bishop
also took on additional technology responsibilities from this
structural realignment. The next major initiative will be a complete redesign of SAAweb. Manager of Education and Outreach,
Maureen Malloy marked this year with an increased emphasis
on outreach activities including support of the efforts of the
PEC web development team which created over 400 pages of
web resources, enabling SAA to serve a host of new public audiences. Executive Director Brimsek noted that Government
Affairs, manager, David Lindsay and SAA’s Government Affairs
Committee had a relatively quiet year on the Hill with one major
exception. Manager of Publications, John Neikirk explored new
opportunities to partner with JSTOR to include a document
delivery service and a new agreement for producing future readers for The SAA Press. Finally, SAA’s coordinator, Financial and
Administrative Services, Tom Weber has played a critical role in
SAA’s programmatic growth.
John Kantner, Editor of The SAA Archaeological Record, thanked
the SAA staff, and all those members who contributed articles
and images to the publication. He noted that he found serving
as Editor to be a rewarding experience and welcomed Andrew
Duff as incoming Editor.
Michael Jochim, Editor of American Antiquity noted the wide
range of submissions he has published and thanked all those
who contributed by submitting articles and serving as reviewers
during his editorship. He especially thanked John Neikirk, SAA
Publications Program Manager, and Douglas Bamforth, American Antiquity book review editor for their hard work, and welcomed Steven Plog as incoming editor.
Mark Aldenderfer, Coeditor with José Luis Lanata of Latin American Antiquity, reported that submissions to the journal have
accelerated during the past year, and that the digital submission
process is successful. He thanked the SAA Board of Directors
for the additional pages allocated to one issue to alleviate backlog. He noted that a new museum reviews column is being initiated and will review the Field Museum’s new Hall of the Americas. Coeditor Aldenderfer especially thanked his editorial assis-
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
tant and SAA Publications Program manager, John Neikirk.
SAA Press Editor David Anderson thanked his editorial advisory committee and reported that two volumes were produced
under his editorship (the reader on formation theory and the
volume on John Cotter), two additional volumes are in process
and an additional four volume prospectuses are being considered. He announced that Paul Minnis will assume the SAA
Press editorship at the 2008 Annual Meeting.
After the reports, President Ames recognized outstanding
achievements by presenting the Society’s Awards, which were
listed in the meeting program.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Frank Hole.
In his remarks, Dr. Hole spoke of six “Goods” which contributed to his success and for which he was grateful: good luck,
good timing, good mentors, good colleagues, good students,
and good health.
After the awards, there was no new business, and the ceremonial resolutions were offered. Following these, President Ames
acknowledged his privilege in serving as SAA President and
thanked Past SAA Presidents, the staff at the Washington D.C.
headquarters, Executive Director Tobi Brimsek, and to three
outgoing Board members. He then presented and turned the
meeting over to SAA President Dean R. Snow.
President Snow remarked on the diversity of initiatives brought
to the SAA every year, noting that progress on these depend on
the more than fifty committees, task forces, and interest groups
of the SAA, on the efficiency of the Washington office, and most
importantly on SAA members. President Snow encouraged participation in the 75th Anniversary fundraising campaign.
remains exceptionally strong at over 7,100 members. The financial news is good as Susan Chandler, our Treasurer, will tell you
shortly. One piece of important financial news that I do get to
tell you is that the Society has achieved its temporary goal of
having 60 percent of one year’s operating costs in our invested
reserves. The Board will probably raise the goal to 65 percent.
The Society continues to work to use your money more effectively. This year on-line voting was added to on-line dues renewal and meeting registration. This coming Fall, you will be able to
do on-line submittals of symposia, paper titles, and abstracts as
well. This not only makes it more convenient for you, but it will
save considerable staff time that can be used in other creative
ways. Hard copy submittals will remain an option for those of
you who prefer it, however.
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS. SAA has devoted considerable energy
and effort to a range of issues. We have continued to closely
monitored the work of the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation’s Archaeology Task Force (Dan Roberts has an article
coming out in a forthcoming The SAA Archaeological Record).
The Task Force “revisited” its burial policy this past year, and
will review its 106 guidance and Heritage Tourism this coming
year. The new burial policy was approved in February. SAA submitted extensive commentary on several drafts. The 106 guidance will be posted on-line midsummer. Please read it and comment. In anticipation of changes in Congress after the November election—anticipation that was borne out—the SAA Government Affairs Committee development a set of legislative priorities for SAA to shift the Society to a more proactive stance
after several years of playing defense. On Wednesday, the Government Affairs Committee mapped out an excellent agenda
based on these priorities.
President Snow called for a motion to adjourn, and the 72nd
annual meeting was adjourned at 6:35 PM.
SAA provided comments, assistance, and letters of support for
several state-level issues affecting the preservation of the archaeological record—something that we do routinely when we are asked
by the local or regional archaeological community for our help.
REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT
Not Government Affairs, but on Wednesday, the Board took a
number to steps to address diversity both within the Society and
the discipline.
The two years of my term as SAA President have sped by. When
I started, I thought two years was hardly long enough to learn
the job, now I think, like Baby Bear’s porridge, it’s just right.
However, I would not have missed it for worlds. One thing I
have learned these past years is how much the SAA does and
how much of that remains invisible—little of it can be fit into
these reports.
PUBLICATIONS. You will hear from our editors shortly—I
would like to commend them for their hard and excellent work
this past year. I want to thank Mike Jochim for his service as editor of American Antiquity and John Kantner for his six years editing The SAA Archaeological Record. I’ll have more to say about
that later. We welcome Steve Plog, the incoming editor of American Antiquity and Andrew Duff, incoming editor of The SAA
Archaeological Record to the dais.
This past year has been good for the Society. Membership
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
49
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
MEETINGS. This year’s meeting is a remarkable success—
second largest after the mythical New Orleans meeting—which
apparently had 17 bazillion people. This meeting has 3,653 people registered and 219 sessions, making it the second largest in
SAA history. As usual, these numbers are not reflected in attendance at this business meeting.
The meeting’s success is the result of many people’s hard work.
We need to thank Program Chair Elizabeth Chilton, her Program committee, and Local Arrangements Co-Chair Angela
Labrador for their efforts in putting this meeting together. We
also want to acknowledge the work of SAA’s executive director,
Tobi Brimsek, and the SAA Staff in this meeting. Will the staff
please stand as I call your names: Darren Bishop, Kevin Fahey,
David Lindsay, Maureen Malloy, John Neikirk, Torgom Pogossian, Tom Weber, and last but not least Tobi Brimsek.
Lynne Sebastian began the President’s Forum two years ago.
There wasn’t one last year, there is this year. We had close to 1,000
people for a lively discussion on the Peopling of the Americas.
Our 75th annual meeting will be in 2010 in St. Louis. A task
force headed by Jerry Sabloff and James Snead are doing the
planning. If you have ideas, please contact them. Our meeting
next year is in Vancouver, British Columbia, and in Atlanta,
Georgia in 2009. The 2011 meeting is scheduled for Sacramento, California.
Tomorrow morning is the third of the Board sponsored sessions
on doing archaeology in Latin America—this year’s session is
on Central America. The Register of Professional Archaeologists and the College of Archaeologists in Peru have signed an
MOU establishing reciprocity between RPA registration and the
credentials required by the Collegio.
This is I think a major step for RPA and for the discipline. That
allows me to segue into talking about the Register of Professional Archaeologists. In order to advance the discipline’s professionalism we need adherence to a code of ethics that embodies our commitment to the resources, our colleagues, and the
public and a grievance mechanism for addressing breaches of
that ethical code. The Register provides this for its sponsoring
organizations: SAA, SHA, the Archaeology Division of AAA,
and AIA, and it will only be truly effective when the great majority of archaeologists come to view registration as a professional
obligation. Please register. Visit the RPA booth tomorrow.
Finally—almost—I want to thank the Nominating Committee,
chaired by George O’Dell, for an outstanding slate of candidates, and to thank all the candidates, both those who were
elected and those who were not, for their exemplary willingness
to serve their Society. I also want to acknowledge and thank our
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The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
outgoing officers and Board members, Linda Cordell, Secretary;
Sarah Schlanger, Board of Directors, and Miriam Stark, Board
of Directors. They brought their passion, their hard work, and
their individual special qualities to the board and we thank
them.
I want to conclude my report by talking about money again. As
part of the 75th Anniversary celebration, two years ago SAA
launched a major fund-raising drive called “Give the SAA a Gift
on its 75th” to enlarge our endowments. Our campaign target is
$500,000 to benefit the SAA’s three endowment funds. When
the SAA Board set that target, we considered smaller goals, but
ultimately decided it was essential to have a campaign that was
ambitious and achievable. We felt confident our membership
would step up and help us to meet that goal. This campaign
builds on work initially done by Fred Wendorf and I want to
thank him for blazing the way. Both Susan Chandler and Dean
Snow will have more to say about the campaign. I am proud to
say that 100 percent of your SAA Board has made a pledge to the
SAA fund-raising campaign. So, please join us and many other
generous members and help to “Give the SAA a Gift on its
75th.” I look forward to being among the celebrants at the St.
Louis meetings in 2010 when we bring this very important campaign to a successful finish.
In closing, I want to say that it has been a distinct honor and
privilege to serve as SAA President these past two years. I have
a number of thanks to make: SAA’s officers and Board of Directors: it has been a distinct pleasure to work with them; the PastPresidents for their advice, wisdom, and humor (I have received
some extremely funny emails). A very special thanks to Tobi and
the SAA Staff without whom this job is unimaginable (and my
hat is off to those Presidents and Boards who did the unimaginable). Our staff is professional and we are extremely lucky in
them. They do much that is invisible to the membership at
large.
And now, it gives me great pleasure to present Dr. Dean Snow,
the new President of the Society for American Archaeology.
REPORT OF THE INCOMING PRESIDENT
Looking over there at the cash bar I am reminded that my dad
once warned me to avoid public speaking in bars, particularly in
Texas, so I will be brief. Ken Ames has done a fine job as president, and he has left me with no excuses should I hand my
duties over to my successor two years from now with the Society in worse rather than better shape. Thank you Ken.
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
have communicated almost daily for the past year, making sure
that there would be continuity in leadership. Our broad agreement on the great range of issues that affect the SAA made this
an easy and collegial collaboration, right up to a few moments
ago when Ken unbolted my training wheels.
The SAA office and board deal with an amazing number of disparate initiatives and problems every year. These are discussed
thoroughly and resolved efficiently by the people you have elected for that purpose. We have over fifty committees, task forces,
and interest groups in the SAA and it is there that most of our
energy, wisdom, and momentum reside. The president and the
board can provide general direction and enforce the specifics of
our bylaws. The office in Washington can provide management
and administration. But most of the hard work in this membership organization is done by you, the members. And that
accounts for the enviable vigor of the SAA.
Ken Ames (right) passing the gavel to Dean Snow.
The SAA is the healthiest and best run association of its type
that I know, and I am honored that you have seen fit to elect me
as president. We have over 7,000 members, of which more than
half are within a very small radius of this spot today, a turnout
envied by most of our peer organizations. Welcome to you all. Y
Bienvenidos a nuestros vecinos, arqueólogos de México, y también a los otros arqueólogos de las Américas que están aquí hoy.
The Washington office is run efficiently by a first-rate executive
director, Tobi Brimsek, and her dedicated staff. Ken Ames and I
We are only three years away from our 75th anniversary meeting in St. Louis, and we are in the midst of a major fund-raising
campaign. I would like to encourage everyone to chip in and
pledge something, however large or modest, to this effort. A $50
pledge, less than a dollar a week, would make a huge difference.
I encourage employers to urge their employees to pledge. I
encourage academics to encourage student members to pledge,
even if at this point in their lives they can afford to contribute
only modestly. The wonders of compound interest will turn
even small donations into a large and productive endowment
over time.
That’s it. I said I would be brief and my internal clock tells me
that my time is up. Thank you for coming tonight, and thank
you for asking me to preside over this exemplary professional
organization.
THE FOLLOWING REPORTS FROM THE ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING CAN BE
VIEWED ON SAAWEB AT HTTP://WWW.SAA.ORG/ABOUT-SAA/REPORTS.HTML:
• REPORT OF THE TREASURER
• REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
• REPORT OF THE EDITOR, THE SAA ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD
• REPORT OF THE EDITOR, AMERICAN ANTIQUITY
• REPORT OF THE COEDITORS, LATIN AMERICAN ANTIQUITY
• REPORT OF THE EDITOR, THE SAA PRESS
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
51
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
2007 AWARD RECIPIENTS
Presidential Recognition Award
Presidential Recognition Award
PEC WEB PAGES WORKING GROUP
JOHN KANTNER
Left to right, Mary Kwas, Carol McDavid, Patrice Jeppson
This Presidential Recognition Award is
given to John Kantner in recognition of
the growth and development of The SAA
Archaeological Record during his six year’s
service as the editor. The SAA Archaeological Record has a unique and special role in
SAA, reaching the broadest possible audience, publishing essays on the array of topics and issues with
which modern archaeology grapples while conveying essential
Society news to the membership. It does this with creativity,
verve, wit, and color. The magazine was well started when John
became editor, but in his six years as editor he built and shaped
it to the publication it is today. I am proud to present this Presidential Recognition Award to John Kantner
Gene Stuart Award
RICHARD L. HILL
The SAA Archaeology for the Public web pages project went
online in 2006 and now provides over 300 web pages rich in
archaeological resources for the public and the SAA membership. Conceived, developed, and now managed by the Web
Pages Work Group of the SAA PEC, the project received financial support from the Bureau of Reclamation and institutional
support from the SAA. The Work Group members donated
thousands of hours of professional service to establish this
growing online resource. Their ongoing research on the web
pages project is helping our profession better understand how
anthropological practice is being informed and transformed in
cyberspace. I am proud to present this Presidential Recognition
Award to the PEC Web pages Working Group
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The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Richard L. Hill, science writer at The Oregonian, earns the 2007
Gene S. Stuart Award for his thoughtful, lively, and engaging
articles. His stories cover archaeological research from prehistoric to historic, often focusing on controversial topics with an
emphasis on the evidence and what it can tell us about the people being studied. They explain the science and process behind
archaeology and are grounded in the work of serious scholars.
His articles leave the reader with a sense that the past is important, that the people and cultures being studied are worthy of
understanding, and that scientific inquiry is a meaningful and
exciting way to discover information about people living in the
past. SAA is proud to present the Gene Stuart Award to Richard
Hill.
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
Student Poster Award
Ethics Bowl
BRIDGET ZAVALA AND JOSE LUIS
PUNZO DIAZ
BROWN UNIVERSITY
This year’s Student Poster Award goes to
Bridget Zavala and Jose Luis Punzo Diaz
for their poster entitled “Chalchihuites in
the Casas Grandes World.”
This years Ethics Bowl is awarded to Brown University. The
members of the winning team are Lisa Anderson, Cassandra
Mesick, Christine Reiser, Krysta Ryzewski, Bradley Sekedat, and
John Cherry (Faculty Mentor).
Dienje Kenyon Fellowship
Professional Poster Award
JEFFREY R. FERGUSON, JELMER E. EERKENS AND
MICHAEL D. GLASCOCK
This year’s Professional Poster Award goes to Jeffrey R. Ferguson, Jelmer E. Eerkens and Michael D. Glascock for their poster
entitled “Artifact Size Bias in Obsidian Chemical Characterization Studies: New Data for an Old Problem.”
JENNIFER L. HENECKE
The Dienje Kenyon Fellowship is presented to women beginning their graduate
careers and pursuing research in zooarchaeology. SAA is proud to present the
2007 Kenyon Fellowship to Jennifer
Henecke (Interdepartmental Doctoral
Program in Anthropological Sciences Stony Brook University)
State Archaeology Week Poster Award
Each year the State Archaeology Week Poster Contest is held at
the Annual Meeting, sponsored by the Public Education Committee and the Council of Affiliated Societies. Winners are
decided by a vote of those viewing the posters and turning in a
ballot included with their registration packets. The winners are:
First Prize: ARIZONA
Douglas C. Kellogg Fellowship
KATHERINE A. ADELSBERGER
Under the auspices of the SAA’s Geoarchaeology Interest Group, family, friends
and close associates of Douglas C. Kellogg
formed a memorial fund in his honor. The
fund will provide support for thesis or dissertation research for graduate students in
the Earth Sciences and Archaeology. SAA
is proud to present the 2007 Kellogg Fellowship to Katherine A.
Adelsberger, (Washington University in St. Louis).
Fred C. Plog Fellowships
MICHAEL MATHIOWETZ (RIGHT)
AND TODD PITEZEL (LEFT)
Second Prize: WYOMING
Third Prize: ALASKA
An award of $1,000 is presented in memory of the late Fred Plog to support the
research of an ABD who is writing a dissertation on the North American Southwest or northern Mexico or on a topic, such as culture change or
regional interactions, on which Fred Plog did research. Applications should consist of a research proposal no more than three
pages long and a budget indicating how the funds will be used.
SAA is proud to present 2007 Fred C. Plog Fellowships to
Michael Mathiowetz (UC Riverside) and Todd Pitezel (University of Arizona).
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
53
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
Arthur C. Parker Scholarship for Archaeological
Training for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians
ORA MAREK (NAVAHO TRIBE)
The awards from SAA’s Native American Scholarship Fund are
named in honor of SAA’s first president, Arthur C. Parker, who
was of Seneca ancestry. The goal of the scholarship is to provide
archaeological training for Native Americans, so that they can
take back to their communities a deeper understanding of
archaeology, and also that they might show archaeologists better
ways to integrate the goals of Native people and archaeology.
SAA is proud to present the 2007 Arthur C. Parker Scholarship
to Ora Marek (Navaho Tribe).
NSF Scholarships for Archaeological Training for
Native Americans and Native Hawaiians
TRACEY PIERRE (CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE
COLVILLE RESERVATION)
Dissertation Award
MATTHEW LIEBMANN (UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA)
In his dissertation “Burn the Churches,
Break up the Bells”: The Archaeology of
the Pueblo Revolt Revitalization Movement in New Mexico, A.D. 1680–1696,
Matthew Liebmann produced a study of
the Pueblo Revolt in northern New Mexico, 1680–1696 seen through the analytical lens of revitalization
movements. He shows that ceramics and public architecture
display a marked rejection of Spanish influence and a rebirth of
precolonial designs and forms. He explains this as a form of
revitalization, a long-standing anthropological model of colonial
adaptation. Among descendant communities hesitant to cooperate with archaeologists, he was able to build a collaboration
that yielded oral histories rich with insight into this period of
chaos and reformulation. SAA is proud to present the 2007 Dissertation Award to Matthew Liebmann.
Student Paper Award
Award For Excellence In Public Education
SCOTT ORTMAN
THE 5TH STREET CEMETERY NECROGEOGRAPHICAL
STUDY
This year’s SAA Student Paper award is
presented to Scott Ortman of Arizona
State University and the Crow Canyon
Archaeological Center for his paper “Population Biology of the Four Corners to Rio
Grande Migration.” He uses phenotypic
traits of prehistoric human skeletal
remains from across the Puebloan Southwest to examine possible genetic connections between populations before and after
the 13th century migrations into the Rio Grande region. In a
multivariate analysis, Ortman presents intriguing evidence suggesting populations leaving the Mesa Verde region show considerable biological affiliation with subsequent Tewa peoples of
the Rio Grande. Ortman’s study demonstrates the value of a
multidisciplinary approach to examinations of prehistoric population movements and interactions. SAA is proud to present
the 2007 Student Paper Award to Scott Ortman.
The 5th Street Necrogeographical Study earned SAA’s Excellence
in Public Education Award for using best practices for high
school students in creating a vital, performance-based curriculum applying geographical systems technologies to an authentic, non-invasive, archaeological investigation. This multiyear
study of two cemeteries in Lewiston, Idaho is exceptional
because it addresses timely issues of import to the surrounding
community. In the end, the project resulted in greater understanding and respect for archaeological remains buried beneath
a public park. This award takes particular note of the exemplary
aspects of this project: students doing “reverse mentoring” with
faculty; outreach across many disciplines and in several languages through published reports; and presentations nationally
to educators, GIS professionals, legislators, business executives,
and others. SAA is proud to present the 2007 Award for excellence in Public Educations to the 5th street Cemetery Necrogeographical Study.
BOOK AWARDS
The Society for American Archaeology annually awards a prize
to honor a recently published book that has had, or is expected
to have, a major impact on the direction and character of archaeological research, and/or is expected to make a substantial contribution to the archaeology of an area. The Society for Ameri-
54
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
can Archaeology also annually recognizes a book that has made,
or is expected to make, a substantial contribution to the presentation of the goals, methods, and results of archaeological
research to a more general public.
Book Award
KRISTIAN KRISTIANSEN AND
THOMAS B. LARSSON
The Rise of Bronze Age Society (published
by Cambridge University Press in 2006)
argues for a sea-change in archaeological
approaches to the interpretation of cultural transformations. Kristiansen and Larsson draw on a wide range of theoretical approaches to develop a
new conceptual framework for examining the interactions of
past societies. The authors’ emphasis on intersocietal contacts
as the prime instrument for archaeologically visible changes in
material culture, coupled with a vast amount of empirical data,
make this a compelling account of how Bronze Age society was
structured and transmitted across continents. The writing is
careful and precise, and the volume is profusely illustrated. SAA
is proud to present this 2007 book award to Kristian Kristiansen
and Thomas B. Larsson
Book Award for Public
Understanding of Archaeology
BRADLEY T. LEPPER
(Richard W. Yerkes accepted the award on
behalf of Bradley T. Lepper)
For his balanced presentation of a spectacular archaeological record, the 2007 SAA
Book Award for a work geared toward a
public audience is presented to Bradley T.
Lepper for Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio’s
Ancient American Indian Cultures (published by Orange Frazer
Press and the Voyageur Media Group). This book presents the
sweep of Ohio’s ancient past in a highly accessible, beautifully
illustrated format. Approaches to contemporary archaeological
research are presented alongside a summary of the culture history, making this useful for teaching. The large-scale format and
profuse illustrations—many in color—makes this an especially
appealing book for the general public. SAA is proud to present
the 2007 Book Award for the Public Audience Book Award to
Bradley T. Lepper.
Award for Excellence in
Archaeological Analysis
ROBERT L. BETTINGER
Robert L. Bettinger is awarded the SAA’s
Excellence in Archaeological Analysis
Award for his contributions to Great Basin
and hunter-gatherer archaeology, and his
methodologically and theoretically innovative integration of evolutionary and ecological archaeology. He is
a true archaeologist’s archaeologist because he has made significant contributions to archaeological theory while keeping his
trowel firmly planted in the ground. His landmark book HunterGatherers demonstrates the ease with which he weds ideas and
data. Bob is known among colleagues and students alike for noting that theory is essential to good archaeology, as are shovels,
screens, and dirt. As the award criteria indicate, this presentation recognizes Robert Bettinger’s “demonstrated ability to successfully create an interpretive bridge between good ideas,
empirical evidence, research, and analysis.” SAA is proud to
present the 2007 Award for Excellence in Archaeological Analysis to Robert L. Bettinger.
Crabtree Award
JAY C. BLAINE
Jay Blaine is the 2007 recipient of the
SAA’s Crabtree Award for his many years
of service to the professional and avocational archaeological communities. An
archaeologist with experience on Paleoindian and Historic sites, Mr. Blaine is an
authority on identifying and conserving colonial metal artifacts
from terrestrial and underwater sites. He has played an indispensable role in the excavation, analysis, and interpretation of
materials from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. He has shared
his insights through numerous publications, conference
papers, and lectures. The Crabtree Award is a fitting tribute for
a researcher whose career has been distinguished by a willingness to share his extensive knowledge for the benefit of all who
support archaeology. SAA is proud to present the 2007 Crabtree
Award to Jay C. Blaine
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
55
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
Award in Excellence in
Cultural Resource Management
Lifetime Achievement Award
FRANK HOLE
GEORGE SMITH
George Smith earned the SAA’s CRM
award for his contributions as an NPS
employee in the administration of 67 NPS
units in the southeast. Additionally, he has
taught public archeology courses for ten
years at Florida State University, has actively served on SAA and
Florida Archeological Council committees with special focus on
public education and archeological protection, as a member of a
World Bank CRM panel on management of cultural properties
in bank-financed projects, and with Indiana University to provide cultural resource management training in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan. Smith is a dedicated scholar committed to archaeological site protection through education and partnerships as a
means of achieving historic preservation goals. SAA is proud to
present the 2007 Award in Excellence in Cultural Resource
Management to George Smith.
Frank Hole has earned the SAA’s Lifetime
Achievement Award for his exemplary
combination of scholarship and professional service. Dr. Hole’s contributions to
archaeological method and theory, and to
the archaeology of the Near East, are pivotal to an extraordinarily diversified yet
integrated career emphasizing the complex relations constituting human ecology. His prolific publication record balances theoretical, methodological, and empirical works. His monograph
on the Deh Luran Plain is still seen as a model for reporting.
Also legendary is his mentorship and his influence in training
generations of today’s scholars. Particularly noteworthy are his
roles as Editor of American Antiquity during intellectually turbulent times, as Chair of the Archaeology Section of the AAA,
and as Chair of the Anthropology Section of both the National
Academy of Sciences and the AAAS. Frank Hole’s career is an
estimable model for lifetime achievement in archaeology.
The Fryxell Award for
Interdisciplinary Research
VAUGHN M. BRYANT
I take particular pleasure in presenting
this award since I was student of both
Vaughn Bryant and Roald Fryxell. Vaughn
M. Bryant has earned the Fryxell Award in
recognition of interdisciplinary excellence
in the field of botanical archaeology. He has contributed greatly
to interdisciplinary archaeology through his research program
in paleoethnobotany, palynology, and archaeology his extensive
and diverse scholarly publications. Dr. Bryant has also raised the
public’s understanding and respect for archaeology through
nontechnical publications, educational films, and participation
in popular venues. Ultimately, Dr. Bryant’s significance is illustrated through the diversity, breadth, and success of his numerous students. Dr. Bryant’s impact on American archaeology is
vast, and as his students train more students in the “Vaughn
Bryant pattern,” his impact will continue to grow. His career is
an admirable model for lifetime achievement in archaeology.
SAA is proud to present the 2007 Fryxell Award to Vaughn
Bryant.
CEREMONIAL RESOLUTIONS
The Resolutions Committee offers the following resolutions:
Be it resolved that the appreciation and congratulations on a job
well done be tendered to the
Retiring OFFICERS
Kenneth M. Ames, President
Linda Cordell, Secretary
and the retiring BOARD MEMBERS
Sarah H. Schlanger
Miriam T. Stark
To the Staff, and especially Tobi A. Brimsek, the Executive Director, who planned the meeting, and to all the volunteers who
worked at Registration and other tasks;
To the Program Committee, chaired by
Elizabeth S. Chilton
And the Program Coordinator
Angela Labrador
and to the Members of the Program Committee
Michael Barton
Maria Franklin
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The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
Michael Chazan
Eric Kansa
72ND ANNUAL MEETING
Sarah Whitcher Kansa
Robert Paynter
Bruce Ream
William Saturno
George S. Smith
Michael Wilcox
Pei-Lin Yu
Desirez Martinez
Ventura Perez
Elenor Reber
Alexia Smith
Michael O. Sugerman
Martin Wobst
Will the membership please signal approval of these motions by
a general round of applause.
And be it further resolved that thanks again be given to those
who inform us of the deaths of colleagues, and finally,
A resolution of sympathy to the families and friends of
James E. Dittert, Jr
Harold D. Juli
Jaime Litvak King
Majorie Ferguson Lambert
James A. Marshall
Frederick R. Matson
Nena O’Neill (Betty Dross)
Garth Portillo
Chosuke Serizawa
William Sturtevant
Bruce Trigger
Andrew “Bud” Whiteford
AND
To the Annual Meeting Local Advisory Committee, co-chaired
by
Patricia Mercado-Allinger and Patricia Wheat-Stranahan
AND
To the PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Committee
Chaired by
Thomas J. Green
And to the COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Dana McGowan
Ken Reid
Vergil Noble
Donald Weir
Will the members please rise for a moment of silence in honor
of our departed colleagues.
Respectfully submitted,
Jon Muller
on behalf of the Resolutions Committee
And to other committee chairs and members completing their
service and to the many members who have served the Society
on its committees and in other ways;
And sincere wishes that those members of the society who are
now serving in the armed forces return safely.
SAA 2008 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
The 2008 Nominating Committee of the Society for American Archaeology requests nominations for the following positions:
President-elect (2008) to succeed to the office of President for 2009–2011
Secretary-elect (2008) to succeed to the office of Secretary for 2009–2011
Board of Directors member, Position #1 (2008–2011), replacement for current member Emily McClung de Tapia
Board of Directors member, Position #2 (2008–2011), replacement for current member Christopher D. Dore
Nominating Committee Member, Member #1 (2009)
Nominating Committee Member, Member #2 (2009)
If SAA is to have effective officers and a representative Board, the membership must be involved in the nomination of candidates.
Members are urged to submit nominations and, if they so desire, to discuss possible candidates with the 2008 Nominating Committee Chair Lynne Sebastian (email: [email protected]).
Please send all nominations, along with an address and phone number for the nominated individual, to:
Chair, 2008 Nominating Committee
c/o SAA Executive Director
900 Second St., NE #12
Washington DC 20003-3560
or fax to 202 789-0284
or email to [email protected]
Please note that nominees must be current members of SAA. Nominations should be received no later than September 4, 2007.
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
57
NEWS
& NOTES
M
. Jill Ahlberg-Yohe Wins
Julian D. Hayden Student
Paper Competition. The winning entry in the Arizona Archaeological
and Historical Society’s Julian D. Hayden Student Paper Competition comes
from M. Jill Ahlberg-Yohe, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology
at the University of New Mexico. “What
Weavings Bring: The Social Value of
Weaving Objects in Contemporary Navajo Life,” a material culture study/ethnology focused on Navajo weavers, offers
new data from firsthand interviews and
provides new insights and interpretations of existing research. The competition committee extends its congratulations to Jill, who will receive an award of
$500 in addition to publication of her
paper in a future issue of Kiva: The Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History.
M
ark Hill Wins SRI Foundation
Research Fellow Scholarship
Award. The SRI Foundation—
a not-for-profit organization dedicated to
advancing historic preservation through
education, training, and research
(http://www.srifoundation.org)—is
pleased to announce that Washington
State University Ph.D. candidate Mark
Hill is the recipient of our first annual
$10,000 Research Fellow Scholarship.
The goal of this fellowship is to provide
academic opportunities through which
the potential of historic preservation
projects and programs can be realized.
Research Fellows use data from one or
more completed historic preservation
projects to pursue a substantive research
topic that forms the basis of a doctoral
dissertation. This research will result in
new knowledge about the historic properties involved in the preservation projects, new knowledge about the era, loca-
58
tion, and people associated with these
properties, and public-oriented products
that can enhance knowledge and appreciation of the past. Hill’s proposal—
”Beyond Duck Lake: Exchange, Ritual,
and Emergent Social Complexity in the
Late Archaic Western Great Lakes”—
builds on data gathered through previous archaeological investigations from
Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan. His public products will
include an Interpretive Plan developed
in coordination with Ottawa National
Forest and an educational booklet written for the interested lay-public visitor.
N
ew National Register Properties. The following archaeological properties were listed in the
National Register of Historic Places during the first quarter of 2007. For a full list
of National Register listings every week,
check
“Weekly
List”
at
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/.
• Alaska, Bristol Bay Borough-Census
Area. DIL-161 Site. Listed 1/22/07.
• Florida, Dade County. POPULO
(Shipwreck). (1733 Spanish Plate
Fleet Shipwrecks MPS), Additional
Documentation Approved 2/07/07.
• Indiana, Randolph County. Fudge
Site. Listed 3/21/07.
• New Mexico, Dona Ana County.
Summerford Mountain Archeological
District. Listed 1/22/07.
• North Dakota, Cass County. Sprunk
Site. Listed 1/09/07.
• Pennsylvania, Duaphin Island.
Calver Island. Listed 1/17/07.
• Virginia,
Accomack
County.
Pocomoke Farm. Listed 2/15/07.
• Virginia, Chesterfield County. Dale’s
Pale Archeological District. (Prehistoric through Historic Archeological
and Architectural Resources at
Bermuda Hundred MPS).
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
• Wisconsin, Crawford County. Cipra
Wayside Mound Group. (Late Woodland Stage in Archeological Region 8
MPS), Listed 2/07/07.
• Washington, San Juan County. San
Juan Lime Company–Cowell’s. Listed
3/06/07.
• Wisconsin, Manitowoc County.
ROUSE SIMMONS (Shipwreck).
(Great Lakes Shipwreck Sites of Wisconsin MPS), Listed 3/21/07.
• Wisconsin, Richland County. Shadewald I Mound Group. (Late Woodland Stage in Archeological Region 8
MPS), Listed 2/07/07.
A
D Symposium at the SAA Meetings: Call for Proposals. The
Archaeology Division (AD) of the
American Anthropological Association
is pleased to sponsor a symposium
annually at the SAA meetings. Proposals
for AD sponsorship at the 2008 SAA
meetings in Vancouver, British Columbia should be submitted by August 20,
2007. A decision will be made before the
deadline for submission to the SAA program committee; the information about
AD sponsorship should be included with
the submission to the SAA program
committee. A proposal should include
title and abstract of symposium, complete list of participants and titles of
papers, and as many abstracts of individual papers as possible. The major criterion for selection is how well the proposed
symposium exemplifies a holistic
anthropological approach to an archaeological topic. Please send proposals as an
email attachment, in either MS Word or
plain text format, to President-elect Janet
Levy, at [email protected]. Organizers
will be informed of the selection no later
than August 31, 2007.
CALENDAR
POSITIONS OPEN
Position: Associate Director Of
Archeology
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Historical Society Associate Director of
Archeology
#54-00327;
$45,344–
$55,456/yr depending on qualifications;
Lincoln, Nebraska. Under administrative direction, serve as Nebraska State
Archeologist, manages the Nebraska
State Historical Society's Archeology
Division and Office of the State Archeologists, including coordination of archeology related activities; develops and
implements long-range plans including
highway archeology programs, publications, collections acquisition and management, and archeology programs; prepares requests for outside funds and
administers contract and grant-funded
projects; participates in the planning
and implementation of projects to
include budget and supplementary
expenditures; supervises anthropology
staff; performs related work as required.
Serve on some boards or commissions.
Directs archeological research and collections; participates on management
team in planning and organizing of
agency objectives; writes reports, budgets, unit plans, policy procedure statements, grant proposals; contractual projects; and other related documents relating to the Archeology Division.
REQUIREMENTS: Masters degree or
higher in Anthropology or archeology,
three years of field excavation experience preferably in the Central Plains
Region, familiarity with Great Plains
prehistory and history, experience with
cultural resource management and
implementation of related policies,
guidelines, and statutes; and experience
in management or archeological collections. Must be able to pass background
check; Must be able to operate Society
vehicles or provide independent transportation; some in-state traveling may
be involved with overnight stays. Knowl-
edge of: Archeological theories and
applications; historic preservation and
public information techniques; Nebraska history; historic reservation standards
and practices; personnel rules, regulations, and policies applicable to supervision of staff; and funding and budgeting
systems. Expected starting date is late
summer/early fall 2007. CLOSING
DATE: Open.
Position: Senior Archeologist
Location: San Diego, California
EDAW Inc., a world leader in Landscape
Architecture, Planning, and Environmental Services has an immediate opening for a Senior Archeologist in our San
Diego office. The position involves oversight of a variety of archaeological, builtenvironment, ethnographic, and historic preservation projects. Responsibilities include preparing proposals and
client presentations, developing new
business opportunities, and presenting
archaeological findings in reports and
publications, and at professional conferences. The successful applicant is
expected to be active in professional and
trade society activities and to become
active in EDAW inter-office collaboration. Skill Requirements: Strategic
leader Approachable team player Willingness to serve as "sounding board" for
colleagues Commitment to high quality
client service Ability to multi-task. Experience Requirements: Seven years of
professional experience in cultural
resources management. Excellent
knowledge of Section 106 consultation
Established professional network. Track
record of professional presentations and
publications. Research interests in western North American prehistory or historical archaeology. Please apply online
at www.edaw.com. EDAW is an Equal
Opportunity/Affirmative Action M/F/V/
D employer.
2007
OCTOBER 5–6
Gender and Archaeology Conference
will be held at the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas. For more information, email
[email protected] or barbara.roth@
unlv.edu, or see http://www.unlv.edu/
colleges/Liberal_Arts/Anthropology.
OCTOBER 13
2007 Three Corners Archaeological
Conference will be held at the campus
of the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
For additional information, visit the
website at http://nvarch.org, or contact
Mark C. Slaughter or Laurie Perry at the
Bureau of Reclamation, LC2600, P.O.
Box 61470, Boulder City, NV 89006; tel:
(702) 293-8143; email: [email protected].
OCTOBER 18–19
"The Future of the Past" Conference
will be held October 18-19, 2007, at
Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Sponsored by SMU's
Maguire Center for Ethics and Public
Responsibility, the conference will
bring together archaeologists, museum
professionals, antiquities dealers, art
collectors, and others to discuss the ethical complexities of the global trade in
antiquities. Keynote speaker: Dr. Donny
George Youkhanna, former President of
the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and
Director General of the Iraq Museum in
Baghdad. For more information, contact Natalie Bowers at Southern
Methodist University: 214-768-2000,
natalie@ smu.edu.
>CALENDAR, continued on page 60
May 2007 • The SAA Archaeological Record
59
CALENDAR
INSIGHTS
CALENDAR, from page 59 <
INSIGHTS, from page 42 <
OCTOBER 28–31
2007 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Geology Division (AGD) of the Geological Society of America (GSA) will
include a series of technical programs
and fieldtrips in Denver. Technical program topics include alluvial cycles and
human prehistory, sourcing techniques
in archaeology, sedimentary geology and
geochemistry studies in paleoanthropology, and geoarchaeological investigations in the Mediterranean-Black Sea
corridor. Two single-day field trips will
focus on Paleoindian geoarchaeology in
western Nebraska and Middle Park, Colorado. For more information, please
visit http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2007/.
Figure 1: Percentage of positive responses (very important and important) with respect to the skill sets
represented in survey questions 5 through 12.
the survey I conducted is a product of my own bias. I encourage others to ask the questions they feel are important and share their results. Engaging in this discussion can
only result in positive and productive change in our discipline as a whole, whether we
are academics or in the applied branches of archaeology. I would like to extend my
thanks to Scott Stull for posting the survey on the ACRA email list and to all of the
anonymous survey respondents that took the time out of their busy schedules to
respond. They responded with enthusiasm and many thanked me for conducting the
survey, proving that my CRM colleagues welcome this dialogue.
References Cited
Sullivan, L. P., and S. T. Childs
2003 Curating Archaeological Collections: From the Field to the Repository. Archaeologists Toolkit
Vol. 6. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
White, N. M., B. R. Weisman, R. H. Tykot, E. C. Wells, K. L. Davis-Salazar, J. W. Arthur, and K.
Weedman
2004 Academic Archaeology is Public Archaeology. The SAA Archaeological Record 4(2):26–29.
Yu, P.-L., B. Mills, and A. Neuzil
2006 Curriculum Committee: “What Skills do I Need to Get and Keep a Job in Archaeology?”
The SAA Archaeological Record 6(3):9–13.
60
The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2007
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